The Hopes and Fears of All the Years
by MrsTater
Summary: When Tonks finds a book she must read during a Christmas shopping trip with Remus, it affects their relationship over three Christmases.
1. 1995: So Stars Impart To Human Hearts 1

_Originally written as a trilogy for the **Christmas Moon Fic Advent **at the **MetamorFicMoon **LJ community for the prompts **stars **and **Christmas shopping**, the 1995 segment tied with pieces by **Wildmagelet **and **Gilpin** for **Members' Choice **awards.  
_

_"We Three Kings" was written and composed by John H. Hopkins, Jr. in 1857; "O Little Town of Bethlehem" was written by Phillips Brooks in 1867, and Hairy Snout, Human Heart is the invention of JK Rowling. I hope none of them mind the creative license I have taken with their works._

_Many thanks to **Godricgal **for listening to many ideas and for her awesome beta work.

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**1995: So Stars Impart To Human Hearts, Part One  
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"Am I to assume this is a subtle hint about another gift you'd like to see under the Christmas tree?"

Tonks, absently humming along with the Christmas carol playing over the bookshop wireless and absorbed in a book, startled at Remus' voice rasping in her ear and the sudden warm tickle of his breath on her neck. She glanced up over her shoulder, a few strands of berry red fringe falling loose from her holly leaf barrettes; her heart accelerated even more as he smiled warmly down at her. Her lips went dry; she darted out the tip of her tongue to moisten them.

Merlin, Remus was scrummy tonight. His fringe, falling over his forehead, was highlighted golden in the glow of the shop lights; his deep burgundy scarf hung loose around his neck, contrasting with a crisp white collar that peeked just ever so slightly untidily from the v-neck of his chocolate coloured jumper. The whole outfit made his eyes look oh-so-brilliantly blue as they held her unblinkingly, crinkled at the corners with his smile.

"Just browsing," Tonks replied, a little breathlessly. Closing the book, one finger tucked inside to mark her page, she turned fully toward Remus with what she was sure must be an idiotic grin. "Got Harry's books?"

Remus held up a brown paper shopping bag emblazoned with Flourish and Blotts in loopy gold lettering. His overcoat was folded over his arm. "Gift-wrapped and ready to go under the tree."

Christmas shopping had always been one of Tonks' favourite activities of the season. She loved the festive decorations in the shops, and the cosiness of the warm, crowded interiors as night settled in early outside, and the soft Christmas tunes playing over the wireless; currently a string quartet played "Three Centaurs In Forests Far," and Tonks thought its dignified, mysterious Oriental melody was the final touch on the image of Remus finishing up the last of his Christmas shopping in the bookshop. He was completely in his element, in top form. Tonks had never realised how sexy Christmas shopping could be. Not that, in the weeks since she and Remus had begun to tentatively explore their more-than-friends relationship, she hadn't discovered that Remus made everything look sexy with his casual confidence and unstudied flair.

The problem was matching him when you were decidedly _without_ flair, and when his lopsided grin threw you even more off-balance than normal, and the heat of his gaze made your palms go all sweaty.

Willing herself to act like the Auror she was instead of the schoolgirl she'd grown out of, Tonks thought she deserved an Order of Merlin for managing to say, in spite of a pounding heart that stole her breath, "Aha! So the mystery's revealed: Remus Lupin has his Christmas presents wrapped."

He raised a sandy eyebrow. "You chase dark wizards for a living, yet your curiosity's piqued by wanting to know whether I do my own _gift wrapping_?"

Tonks stabbed herself in the thigh with the corner of the book as she squared her shoulders and assumed her most imposing hands-on-hips stance.

"Is that going to bruise?" Remus asked, eyes darting down to her hip.

"You're a complex character, Lupin," said Tonks, and fought against an un-imposing smile to have commanded his curious gaze once more. "Just want to know who I'm dealing with."

The eyebrow arched higher, disappearing into his fringe. Remus took a step nearer to her, the overcoat brushing her side, and asked huskily, "Is that so?"

Tonks' mouth went dry, all the moisture apparently rushing downward to her palms, and she licked her lips again.

Again, and worthy of more awards, she managed not to stammer as she met his level gaze. "It is, sir. There were two possibilities for you, and I'd have believed either. Typical bachelor, who can't cast a straight Cutting Charm to save his life and uses far too much Spellotape, or..." She allowed her lips (which seemed unlikely to be controlled anyway) to curve in what must be a coy expression, and she dropped her voice to a flirtatious pitch. "...the creative, sensitive type, who puts as much care into the wrapping as he does into selecting the gift."

"I see. Well." Remus leant in. Tonks shivered as his lips brushed her earlobe when he whispered, "It might benefit you to know that you're dealing with a wizard who had every gift for his friends wrapped, but braved the terrors of Spellotape and did _yours_ himself."

Tonks' cheeks ached as her smile cracked into an ear-to-ear grin. "Did he?" she asked shakily, surrendering all those medals for smoothness to her hammering heart.

"Mm." Straightening up, Remus nodded down at her book in her hand. "Now, what were you so engrossed in that I managed to sneak up behind an Auror?"

Though her heart rate stayed the same, Tonks felt a subtle shift in the cause of the rapid beating with which she was all too familiar. Her throat went dry as she clutched the book at her side, suddenly nervous about what Remus would think of her choice of reading material. Ever since she'd visited Arthur at St. Mungo's that morning and seen that poor bloke, who'd just been bitten by a werewolf, in the bed opposite, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about what those early days had been like for Remus. When she noticed this title in the midst of her browsing, she'd been unable to resist taking a look. But weren't these questions she ought to ask Remus herself? Or were they questions best left unasked? He was such a private man, and seemed to manage his condition so easily. She'd hate to make him feel a curiosity now they were an exclusive couple, after all her trouble to show him otherwise.

"Harry'll really like his present," Tonks said hastily. "Poor kid, these visions -- they're not exactly prophecies, are they? -- are really hard for him to deal with. He seemed right spooked today. It'll help him to learn some new defences."

"I hope so." Remus glanced down at her book. "But your--"

"My present? Merlin, you don't think it'll make Harry feel badly about Quidditch, do you? I'm always putting my foot in it with him. D'you know I actually asked him today if he'd got _Seer blood_?"

Tonks felt her cheeks prickle warmly at the memory of Harry's green eyes looking at her as if she'd asked him if he were some species of clairvoyant Clabbert, and how little he'd said to her after the fact.

"All my life I heard about The Boy Who Lived..." Her voice was pinched-sounding in her own ears, fingernails digging into her palm as she balled her free hand into fists. "...I'd a special box just for Harry Potter's Chocolate Frog cards, and when I finally meet him, I make a right fool of myself--"

"You're never foolish." Remus lightly pressed his fingertips to her mouth. "Harry will love the Firebolt model. He needs a proper teenager gift, and it will mean a great deal to him to know he's got people who care about him."

Hands relaxing, Tonks kissed his fingers and started to speak, but before she could, Remus said, "Just as it will mean a great deal to me to know what you're reading, so I can wrap another present for you, which I can be assured you'll like."

"Do you really want to know?" Tonks asked, withdrawing the book behind her back, and clasping it tightly in both hands. "What if it's a soppy romance novel?"

Remus smirked, and Tonks knew she hadn't helped herself a bit. She caught her breath as he leant toward her and spoke in her ear."If it's a soppy romance novel, I might assume that you're anxious to finish our shopping because you're in the mood for particular activities."

He brushed warm lips over her neck, where her pulse beat furiously, and Tonks wished to Merlin she'd wandered to the shelf of trashy novels at the back of the shop -- even if they did make her think sex was more funny than sexy, and a series of acrobatic and gymnastic feats even the most adept of witches could never pull off, much less ones who were all left feet and thumbs.

Abruptly, Remus straightened up and said, "But I know it's not a soppy romance novel."

"How? Legilimency?"

"I don't have to use Legilimency to know that particular literary genre is not found in the..." His eyes darted upward, to the garland and ribbon trimmed sign over their heads. "...Magical Creatures section, or that it most frequently comes in small paperback form."

"And how do you know so much about that..." Tonks snorted. "..._particular literary genre_?"

"Molly," Remus replied steadily. He patted his trouser pocket, jingling a few coins. "Keeps them in her apron and sneaks reads whilst she cooks and cleans."

Tonks blinked, then narrowed her eyes, scrutinising his features for any sign of mischief. His eyes _did _hold a telltale gleam of amusement, and the smile lines at the corners and around his mouth had deepened -- but that didn't mean he was pulling her leg. If he _were _telling the truth about Molly reading bodice rippers whilst she did housework, of course he'd find it amusing.

Then again, even though he was Remus Lupin and the epitome of cool, was he _quite_ cool enough not to be the least bit self-conscious while talking about the smutty reading habits of someone who might as well be his mother?

"Well." Tonks returned his level stare. "I reckon that explains the seven kids. I wonder if she and Arthur role--"

Remus cleared his throat, eyes darting downward. "Your book, which does not fit that particular literary genre?"

Grinning in triumph, Tonks handed over the book. "Title grabbed me. It's anonymous."

Satisfaction sank like a leaden weight into the pit of her stomach as Remus' playfully grinning mouth drew into a tight line.

"_Hairy Snout, Human Heart_." He gave a sarcastic snort of laughter. "Yes, I can see how a rubbish title like that might pique morbid interest."

Tonks glowered at him through her scarlet fringe. "I think it's cute." Jutting her chin, she pushed her hair out of her eyes and secured it once more in the barrettes. "Have you read it, or are you judging the book by itstitle?"

"I believe it's the cover you're not supposed to judge."

"The title's on the cover."

Remus' shopping bag crinkled against her legs as he suddenly lurched forward into her. A witch juggling a red-faced, squalling baby and a number of parcels begged her pardon for bumping into him, and Remus glanced over his shoulder to with a smile and a flick of his wand that reduced the packages and tied them in a neat bundle for her.

Though Tonks wanted to throw her arms around Remus and snog him senseless in the shop to show everyone how proud and lucky she was to be this lovely gentleman's girlfriend, she couldn't let him off the hook that easily.

It was a task worthy of a Triwizard champion to fold her arms across her chest even though he remained standing so close to her that she felt his warm breath on her face, ruffling her fringe. Drawing a deep breath, she tried to ignore his oh-so-kissable mouth as she glanced down at the book in his hand, and then back up to meet his eyes.

"Well?" she asked.

The lines of his face became more pronounced. "I am familiar with it, yes," he said stiffly, then added, "though I would prefer not to be."

The last he pronounced with such a contrasting casualness that it was obvious to Tonks he was deliberately masking a true reaction. _Git_. Always on the lookout for an opportunity to wind her up. She couldn't believe he hadn't tacked _Nymphadora _onfor the full effect. In that low, flirty tone that _almost _made her like the name. A slight disappointment rose that he _hadn't _used it now, when he was looking so disarmingly boyish and sexy.

Resisting these thoughts that undermined her lifelong crusade against her Christian name, Tonks protested, "Well, _I_ think it's fantastic."

For just a moment Remus' lips hung agape, his eyes rounded, and his face flushed, but then he reassumed that stolid mask and regarded her with a raised eyebrow. "Do you, now?"

"I do."

"Why?"

"It's really well written. Compelling. Funny and melancholy and honest and sad and hopeful..." In spite of knowing that Remus would never be condescending, she couldn't stop herself colouring as she noticed his lips twisting in a smirk. "_Don't_ laugh at me, Professor. I may not be the intellectual, but I _do_ have pretty good taste."

"I'm not laughing!"

Tonks quirked an eyebrow, and Remus looked adorably sheepish.

"All right, I am, but only because it's rather amusing to hear adjectives like _compelling _paired with titles like _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_."

"It _is _compelling." Tonks snatched the book from him. "I feel like I know this bloke..." She broke off with a laugh as sudden realisation dawned about why she was staunchly defending the book against Remus' mockery. "Something about this reminds me a lot of _you_, actually."

She watched Remus' Adam's apple bob as he swallowed hard. What in Merlin's name? Remus looked as if he'd just seen his boggart.

But instantly he composed himself and said dryly, "The werewolf thing, probably."

"It's Christmas, don't be a prat," Tonks said, thumbing through the pages for that passage she'd been reading before he joined her.

"I'm not being--"

"Listen, I'll prove it to you."

"Prove that I'm being a prat?"

"Yes." Tonks rolled her eyes. "Prove the book's compelling--" With a side-long glance, she grinned. "--you great _prat_."

Remus grinned back, but Tonks didn't miss a slight downward twitch at the corners of his mouth, or the way his eyes darted down at the book in her hands. As though he were _nervous_.

Was he winding her up to cover the fact that she'd made him uncomfortable? Oh, Merlin, why hadn't she thought of it before? Remus might be acting funny because they were discussing a werewolf autobiography in public.

She glanced around the shop, making sure there at least weren't other customers in earshot. They seemed quite absorbed in searching for gifts in aisles across the way or at the cash desk, but Tonks decided to cast a _Muffliato_ just to be safe. Remus smiled again as she tucked her wand back into the inner pocket of her cloak, but held his shoulders stiffly, clearlynot put entirely at ease.

Tonks cleared her throat and read in a low tone:

"_Every morning after the full moon, I always felt like an utter wretch when I watched my mother cast Reparo Charms on everything in my bedroom -- which was becoming increasingly difficult to return to order, the more times I transformed and tore the place apart. I remember vividly telling her she could chain me up in the cellar, and she looked at me as if I'd said a dirty word._

_"'You're such a good son,' Mother said. 'You never did put me through the Terrible Twos, and most mothers have to live with the Ferocious Fourteens every minute of every day, and I only have to tidy up after you once a month.' _

_My father shrewdly advised me not to mention this to my future wife when she asks me whose genes are responsible for any Ferocious Fourteens we shall produce."_

"You see?" Tonks said, looking up from the book, trying for an _I-told-you-so_ tone, but not quite managing it due to both her laughter and the lump that had formed in her throat. "Melancholy plus funny equal compelling. And his parents just sound so much like yours--Oh, come off it!"

Remus had blanched and recoiled from her.

"Fine!" Tonks clapped the book shut. "It's sentimental and _soppy_. There, I said it. But d'you have to be all...male and repressed?"

"I--" Remus backed into the end of a bookshelf, and Mr. Blott glared over a customer's shoulder as a couple of large volumes thudded onto their sides.

Tonks reached around Remus to right them. "Can't you admit that you're just a tad sentimental yourself, and that you can see how I might think this sounds like something you'd write? You know -- if you actually talked about your feelings."

At his shocked and horrified expression, Tonks felt her own face mirroring it. And going very hot. The book slipped from her clammy hands, pages rustling as it landed open at the centre. She pressed her palms to her cheeks, and stumbled back from Remus, against another bookshelf -- earning another glower from Mr. Blott behind the counter.

"Oh God, Remus, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that--"

Instantly he'd moved toward her, blue eyes looking kindly down as he caught her wrists and pulled them away from her face.

"No offence taken," he said. "I think taciturn is an apt description for me." He smiled pleasantly.

Tonks returned it, weakly. He might not have been insulted, but he'd definitely avoided the subject of the book. Which, she realised, feeling the proprietor's glare on her, and hearing him clear his throat, was still lying quite untidily on the floor between her and Remus. She bent and picked it up, smoothing out the pages that had got bent in the fall with her fingertips, not trusting herself with a charm under the shopkeeper's leery stare.

"Anyway, compelling's not just my opinion," Tonks resumed the conversation. She was probably pressing her luck, but she'd always been a glutton for punishment. She opened the book to the flyleaf and pointed at the blurb. "Newt Scamander calls it _'a heartrending account of one wizard's battle with lycanthropy'_."

"Magical Creatures experts aren't known for their literary knowledge."

Tonks glared. "D'you know what? I'm going to buy it."

"Buy it?" Remus looked so mystified that Tonks couldn't bring herself to laugh outright at him. But she couldn't resist getting her own back at him after all the winding up he'd done.

"So I can finish reading it. Get into your psyche." Tonks grabbed the end of his scarf and tugged at it. "Because I know you've got a broody, sentimental side."

Remus ducked his head, looking down at his shuffling feet as his fringe fell over his forehead. "You shouldn't have to read an anonymous werewolf's biography to get into my psyche."

"I'm teasing." Tonks tugged the scarf again, then stepped closer to him, raising her face to his down-turned one, and pressed a quick kiss to his chin. His hand settled on her waist as she went on. "I want to read it. It's been a long time since I found a book I liked so much." She turned to go and pay for the book, glancing back over her shoulder at Remus. "Besides, don't you think he'd appreciate the royalties?"

"I'm sure he would," said Remus quietly, and Tonks stumbled over her own feet at the tightness of his tone. It wasn't like him at all to be self-conscious about things pertaining to the state of werewolves.

"Remus..." She wheeled back to him. "What's wrong? What'veve I--?"

He caught her shoulder and steered her back toward the cash desk. "Do you really think I'm sentimental?"

Tonks was perfectly aware of his subject-changing tactic, but couldn't stop an ear-to-ear grin as the happy feeling welled up again. "_Mine_ are the only presents you did battle with Spellotape for, aren't they?"

She presented the book to Mr. Blott, who looked asked slightly less harassed at the thought of her purchasing the book she'd manhandled. He did frown in perplexity when he saw what the book was, but sounded almost cordial when he asked if she'd like it gift-wrapped.

"What d'you think, Remus?" Tonks asked. "Should I wrap my present from me to me?"

"You could always have the card printed, _From Father Christmas_."

Tonks laughed, but her mirth died at Mr. Blott's decidedly _not_ amused sniff, and his eyes darting over her shoulder to the wall clock, which indicated it was nearly closing time.

"Just a bag'll do, thanks," Tonks said quietly, and reached into her cloak for her moneybag.

Mr. Blott counted the coins she gave him, then turned to put them in the cash register. As a quill sprang from the top of the machine and wrote out the receipt on a long, narrow sheet of parchment, he commented, "It _is_ a well written book."

"Told you so!" Tonks grinned smugly over her shoulder at Remus, who nodded once in concession -- though it was a bit undermined by his ever-so-slight eyeroll.

"It's a _strange_ selection," Mr. Blott went on heavily, bursting Tonks' bubble. "Though it would have been stranger had you been purchasing this as a gift." He handed Tonks her receipt and her change. "I suppose those with an interest in Magical Creatures..."

A few Knuts clinked on the wood floor as Tonks, struck with a sudden idea, missed the opening of her purse

"Actually, I _can_ make a gift of this."

The coins Remus had crouched to pick up jangled on the floor again, and Mr. Blott, looking distinctively owlish, blinked rapidly.

"I'd like a second for myself," Tonks said. "D'you know if you've another copy?"

Eyes narrowed in an expression something like she'd insulted him, the shopkeeper flicked his wand. "_Accio Hairy Snout, Human Heart_."

"A gift?" Leaving his shopping back on the floor, coat draped over it, Remus stood and handed Tonks the change she'd dropped. "For whom? Hagrid?"

"I'd love that one gift-wrapped, thanks," said Tonks. She waited until Mr. Blott retreated to the back room, then turned to Remus. "For that bloke I told you about. In the Dai Llewellen ward."

Remus stared at her. "You want to give a werewolf's autobiography to the man who was bitten by a werewolf?"

_Oh. dear. Merlin. _

Remus hadn't been winding her up.

She'd _upset_ him.

He'd been joking to get her off of this book thing, and she'd kept pushing it in his face.

Tonks' cheeks had never been burned by hotter flames of mortification, and yet fiery indignation flared within her.

"I thought it might be helpful." She hissed through her teeth, "I'll thank you to remember that I'm the most hopelessly socially awkward witch in Britain, and bloody _tell me_ when I'm making a gigantic fool of myself--"

Remus' hands gripped her shoulders, pulling Tonks against him as he kissed her forehead. "You have done nothing of the sort," he said hoarsely. Tonks shivered as his long fingers slid up the curve of her neck to cup her face. His eyes were intense as they held hers. "You're the most thoughtful witch in Britain, and I'd be happy to deliver the book to St. Mungo's and tell the chap so myself." He leant in and kissed her again. "I'm sorry I made you think you'd offended me. It's not the case at all, I assure you."

Though his affection and the fervour of his words reassured Tonks, she felt dazed. "Then why are you acting so funny about this book?"

His eyes darted away. "I--"

"Here you are, Miss."

They turned just as Mr. Blott emerged from the back room, carrying the wrapped book. He looked reprovingly over his spectacles at them, and Tonks slipped from Remus' arms to make her purchase.

When Tonks turned back to Remus, she found him bundled up for the outdoors: scarf knotted, coat buttoned, gloves on. "Is that all our shopping done, then?"

Tonks nodded, and Remus picked up his shopping bag from the floor, then moved in front of her to get the door. "What do you say to hot chocolate at the Leaky?"

"Damn."

Remus paused with his hand on the door handle to give her a quizzical look.

"If I'd been reading a soppy romance," Tonks said, grinning, "you'd be asking for a nightcap at mine. I just _had_ to pick a werewolf book. Now I've got to settle for innocent hot chocolate in public."

Remus chuckled and opened the door. The gust of frigid air that barraged them made Tonks grab his arm with both hands and press herself tight against his side.

"Hot chocolate at the Leaky's a fantastic idea," she said, shivering.

"Though if we'd simply Apparated to yours, we wouldn't need the cocoa."

Chattering teeth prevented further conversation as they made their way down the crowded pavement as briskly as they could. In nicer weather, Tonks -- and Remus, too, she knew -- would have tolerated the cold and taken her time looking at the Christmas displays in the shop windows. Or, were it clear, she would have been keen to look at the stars -- "Three Centaurs In Forests Far" playing in Flourish and Blotts had put her in mind of them. But tonight's sky was shrouded in fog, the last waning rays of the setting sun blocked by the low, winter clouds. No, drinking a hot chocolate at the Leaky with Remus really was the thing to do.

As Tonks trotted to keep up with his longer stride, the books in her shopping bag thumped against her side, reminding her of the interrupted conversation in the bookshop.

What explanation had Remus been about to give for his peculiar behaviour?

_To be continued..._

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_**A/N: Hope y'all are still in the mood for a little holiday ficcage. Most people still have their Christmas trees up, right? ;) This is my first R/T holiday piece, so I'd love to know what you think so far. Reviewers get their own scrummy, brown jumper and burgundy scarf-wearing, gift-wrapping, hot chocolate-drinking Remus to go shopping and help spend all those gift cards they got for Christmas. **_


	2. 1995: So Stars Impart To Human Hearts 2

**1995: So Stars Impart To Human Hearts, Part Two**

The Leaky Cauldron was packed. Remus sent Tonks with their shopping bags to find a table whilst he ordered their hot chocolates. Remarkably, she quickly found a narrow booth by the fireplace at the back. It hadn't been cleaned since the last customer left it, but Tonks cast a quick _Scourgify_. She eyed the cleared table critically. Definitely not up to snuff for her mother or Molly, but certainly more than good enough for Tom, the barman.

She slid into the corner seat, and heard the familiar strains of "O Diagon In London Town" drifting over the tavern din. It had been one of her favourites since she was a little girl --and even more so since she'd got her very own flat here when she started Auror training -- and she couldn't help but sing along softly. As she sang, her gaze roamed across the smoky tavern, taking in the witches and wizards who'd stopped in for a hot toddy or bowl of stew after a day of Christmas shopping. Their chairs were surrounded by bags and parcels; as they ate, many pored over rolls of parchment which were, presumably, checklists. And of course at the bar sat the tavern regulars, some who seemed too engrossed in their hot toddies to notice that it was almost Christmas, while others sang along with the wireless -- and given their rowdy laughter, Tonks assumed they were singing the randy schoolboy words.

When her gaze locked with Remus', who was standing at the back of a long queue at the bar, Tonks stopped singing. The lopsided grin he wore was enough to make her go weak at the knees, but it was the accompanying look in his eyes -- something about it told her he'd been staring at her since he took his place -- which made her sure that if ever she were to start having equilibrium issues whilst seated, now was the time. But she wasn't able to identify the expression before Remus grinned wider, and gave a little wave and wink.

_God, he looked dishy tonight..._The outdoor clothing had come off, and her eyes travelled from the beautiful long-fingered hands up the arm his overcoat was draped over, to his lovely, kissable neck from which his burgundy scarf dangled. Tonks desperately wanted to go keep him company so everyone would see _she _was the lucky witch he was buying hot chocolate for, but she didn't suppose it was in the spirit of the holiday to reserve their table by rolling out the _"Under Auror Investigation: Keep Away"_ tape.

Not trusting herself to keep watching him without sacrificing the table by the fire, Tonks pulled off her gloves, took out her new book, leant back against the wall, and stretched her legs out on the bench.

She didn't think she'd be able to focus on it with all the tavern noise, the Christmas carols on the wireless that made her want to sing, and Remus looking so sexy just a few yards away, but once again the narrative captured her attention. Soon she was aware of nothing but the sensation of being caught up in a story that was very familiar, giggling or murmuring to herself as though the anecdotes were being related to her by a dear friend.

"Can't put it down, hmm?"

The low, slightly hoarse voice was accompanied by a clunk on the table. Tonks looked up, dazed, to find Remus sitting opposite her, sliding a mug across the rough wooden surface. There was a lilt of amusement in his voice and a bemused curve at the corners of his mouth, which Tonks was rather put out with herself for not being sure what they indicated.

He'd said in Flourish and Blotts that she hadn't offended him, and she believed him --

-- but something was off.

Tonks wasn't about to put the book away and let this drop. Remus' condition -- or rather, its affect on his life -- couldn't be ignored. She didn't want to ignore it. _What_ Remus was made him _who_ he was. She cared a great deal for who he was -- and she suspected, did something much more than _care_; surely it was only right she care about what he was, as well? Their relationship, which was just beginning to resemble her dreams by hinting at something more than a simple romance, never would do if they didn't acknowledge _every_ part and allow it its proper place.

"Thanks." Tonks nodded to the steaming mug of hot chocolate as she shifted to sit the right way in the booth. Laying the book prominently on the table, she wrapped her hands around the cup and held it close to her chest. "No, I really can't put it down. It's a fantastic read."

She watched him drink his hot chocolate as she sipped hers.

"I can see how it might make you a bit...uncomfortable," Tonks went on, setting down her mug and reaching for Remus hand that rested on the table. "I promise I'll try not to drive you mental by running on about it..."

Remus squeezed her hand and smiled. "Some people would say I'm quite mental enough on my own, so that oughtn't dissuade you from running on."

Encouraged, Tonks pulled her hand away and picked up her book. "Can I read you just one more bit, then?"

"Just one more," said Remus with a sigh of mock exasperation.

Tonks eagerly turned to the page she'd been reading just before. Her chest constricted, and her heart accelerated as it used to when Professor McGonagall had called on her in Transfiguration class.

"_I cannot tell you how many times my mother said, 'Don't ever let anyone treat you as less than a man just because you've got a hairy snout one night a month. You've always got a human heart.' _

_"She could have made a fortune going into the werewolf greeting card business."_

Remus gave the slightest puff of a laugh into his hot chocolate, and Tonks, confidence bolstered, read on:

_"It was the gift of dignity which my parents so graciously bestowed again and again, doing everything within their power not to make me feel like an animal, even on that one night a month when I changed into one with the most feral urge of any living creature. They taught me to see the humour in my situation, and even to laugh._

_"The only way my parents ever failed me was in not teaching me to laugh at the outbreak of pimples that would inevitably greet me when I woke on the day of a party, or the screech of my changing voice when I finally worked up the courage to ask a pretty witch for a date. Teenagers, apparently, are more baffling creatures than werewolves. Another thing my father advised me not to mention to my wife when I am a parent of teenagers."_

Tonks couldn't read any more for laughing, but soon stopped, horribly aware that Remus hadn't emitted so much as a chuckle.

Wanting to check his reaction, but not quite able to meet his gaze, Tonks darted her eyes up through her red hair and saw his index finger tracing the rim of his cup. A self-conscious gesture.

Her gaze wandered upward to his mouth, lips curved downward, not in a frown, but unsmiling. Still further up, his cheeks were tinged with slight colour; Tonks' own warmed in response, though she hadn't the faintest idea what was going on. He'd invited her to read, he'd said he was familiar with the book...If only she could see his eyes -- but they were hidden by his fringe.

"I just love his optimism," Tonks said, her forefinger mirroring his action.

Remus looked up at her then, his head tilted slightly, eyes asking her to go on.

Not sure what exactly he expected her to say, Tonks blurted the first thought that entered her mind. "And I love his parents."

Remus sat up very straight in his chair. Tonks felt very small in hers, as if she'd shrunk down doll-sized and were peering up at a giant's table.

"There ought to be more people like them in the world," she added quickly, voice registering at an unnaturally high pitch in her ears.

For a moment, Remus' hand loomed over the table as he picked up his cocoa mug. His eyes were faraway, and fond, as he took a long drink. Was he thinking of _his _parents, Tonks wondered? She watched his Adam's apple bob.

"Yes," said Remus quietly, meeting her eyes. "The world certainly could use more people like them."

Tonks fingered the spine of the book, _Anonymous embossed _where a name should have been. "I wonder what this bloke's doing now."

The contemplative look filled Remus' eyes again, this time laced with melancholy. Tonks mentally flogged herself. Of course Remus knew what the chap was doing now. With the Umbridge laws, he very likely was in the same employment straits as Remus. And certainly he didn't have the Order to keep him occupied.

Did he still have family? Friends? A girlfriend or wife? Before Tonks met Remus, she'd thought all werewolves lived on the fringes of society, part of neither the Wizarding nor Muggle world.

Did Remus know any other werewolves. Did he think there was any way to help them under the current political climate? She'd seen them arrested and thrown in Azkaban for petty thievery, heard Aurors grumbling about the procedures and precautions and dealing with the Werewolf Capture Unit. Tonks had seen mug shots and pitied them. In school she'd been taught to fear monsters like Fenrir Greyback, but these men and women didn't seem fearsome. They were crude and ignorant, but that was because they were uneducated, cast out, cut off. Could Remus, having always lived among wizards, despite their prejudices, relate to others at all? She couldn't bring herself to call them _his kind_, because she couldn't imagine him without his dignity, as the object of pity.

"Well," Remus' voice broke in, "luckily for this chap, he's got a book for royalties."

"Mr. Blott acted as if it wasn't exactly a hot seller." Tonks sighed and slumped forward, elbows on the table and chin in her hands, hearing the bookshop keeper's words about strange topic and odd gift in her mind as she nursed the drink. What kind of people would want to read about werewolves? Surely the book had an audience.

Suddenly Tonks' spine snapped erect, and she sloshed cocoa as she brought her mug down on the table. "Merlin, Remus, it _could be_ popular. Top of the Witch Weekly Bestseller List, I reckon."

His sandy eyebrows disappeared into his fringe, but only for a second. He drank his hot chocolate, then his lips twitched into his mild smile as he dabbed the corners with a paper napkin. "I'm sure the author, whoever he is, would appreciate your enthusiasm, but I am equally sure his literary agent would have exhausted every possible market in which the book could have potential success." He shook his head, the lines around his eyes becoming a little more noticeable. "No, Tonks, I cannot imagine many people at all care for werewolf autobiographies--"

"If Gilderoy Lockhart can force his plagiarised rubbish on Defence students," Tonks said, picking up her mug again and shaking it in front of Remus' nose, sloshing a little more cocoa onto the table, "then why isn't _this_ book required reading?"

Again, Tonks seemed to have caught Remus completely off his guard, but again he recovered his wits before she could puzzle out just what the hell his problem was. Other than being a prat and making her reconsider her career choice, of course; she had to be a crap Auror if she couldn't even figure out her boyfriend.

"I'll trust from your earlier use of the word _compelling_..." Remus paused for another a drink. "...that you're not comparing the two authors."

As she rolled her eyes, Tonks decided the best tactic was to ignore him. If she could keep on making her rational points, she would eventually wear him down enough to get a long enough look at what he was trying to hide.

"All people ever learn about werewolves is how to recognize them," she said. "All they ever teach us is to be afraid of werewolves. But they..." He caught her gaze. "But _you_," she corrected. "You're _people_." She felt her passion mounting as she picked up the book and stuffed it back in her shopping back with the wrapped copy. "You know, I've half a mind to buy up all of them and send them to everyone I know for Christmas.

"That's a thought," said Remus. "You would, of course, include Dolores Umbridge?"

Tonks gave a snort of laughter. "That'd be a lump of coal in her stocking, wouldn't it?"

She turned back to him, and her breath caught at the way he was looking at her. His eyes were so brilliantly blue with an expression of...what was it? Delight? No -- more than delight. Was he dazzled? But she'd done nothing dazzling. Dazed, more likely. Except there was something very much like admiration tingeing his expression -- though Tonks couldn't imagine why.

Whatever it was, he'd never looked at her this way before.

Like he was touching her, inside and out, and...

_His feelings for her had changed. _

"What's that look mean?" she whispered, wondering if she'd ever looked at him like that.

"It means..."

Remus reached across the table and took her hand, his thumb stroking hers. Tonks shivered. His eyes darkened as they held her. "Three Centaurs In Forests Far" was playing again on the wireless, and somehow its mystery made it a romantic tune.

"It means there ought to be more people like _you_ in the world."

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed each of her knuckles, so tenderly; then each of her fingertips, lingeringly. If Tonks had been disappointed by the niggling thought that Remus hadn't quite told her the full truth about the meaning of his expression, then these kisses drove away every trace of it.

And he hadn't stopped looking at her _that way_.

It was too much. Her insides quaked, and she thought she was in very real danger of losing her balance whilst sitting down, after all.

She let her eyes drift over his shoulder, out the window. Through the grime and steam, she made out patch of blue-black sky in the midst of the clouds.

"Oh, Remus!" She jumped up, banging her knees on the underside of the table. "Let's have a stroll under the stars!"

"What about the cold?" Remus asked, though he got to his feet as well, and began to button his coat. "Isn't that why we're in here, drinking hot chocolate?"

"Yep. But I'm all warmed up now."

They emerged from the Leaky Cauldron bantering and laughing, breath forming clouds in the crisp air and mingling with the fog that hung about the crooked corners. The clouds in the sky had parted even more than Tonks had seen through the tavern window. Silver stars spangled the sky, twinkling like fairy lights, as if the whole world were decorated for Christmas.

"Song stuck in your head?" Remus asked.

Tonks hadn't realised till then that she'd been singing. "It's been following me everywhere tonight."

She tucked a strand of hair back into her barrette, then caught Remus' hand tightly, swinging it as they made their way down the streets, which were considerably less crowded with shoppers and vendors than they had been when they'd walked to the Leaky Cauldron, just before sunset. Unable to help herself, she sang,

_"Three Centaurs in forests far_

_Upward turned our gazes are_

_Leo, Serpens_

_Corvus, Melins_

_Inner eyes on the stars. O-oh--!"_

She abruptly fell silent, aware that Remus' face was turned down to her as they walked -- looking at her that way again. Tonks couldn't look at him, afraid of what she wanted to see, afraid of what she might not see. But Remus' eyes never left her face as he slowed their pace.

"Why did you stop?" he asked. "Please, go on."

"Only if you sing with me. I feel ridiculous, singing alone in the middle of the street." She realised they were just passing Gringott's.

Remus stopped walking and tugged at her hand, pulling her to face him. "You've no reason to feel ridiculous. You've a lovely voice."

He'd let the shopping bag slide into the crook of his elbow, freeing his other hand. For just a moment his gloved fingers pressed hers, then both hands slid up over her wrists, along her forearms, drawing her closer to him so that his coat brushed her knees as he finally settled his hands on her waist. How did his touch still work its tingling magic on her with thick layers of winter clothing between them?

"Lovely when I'm not screaming along with the Weird Sisters?" Tonks managed to ask, though not with quite the amount of sauciness she'd hoped for.

Remus chuckled, warm breath steamy against her mouth as he just touched his lips to hers. "Go on, please?" he asked, quietly against her mouth. "I like listening to you."

Tonks turned and found herself linking arms with him to resume their walk through Diagon Alley, and surprised herself by clearing her throat to continue singing the carol. She vowed never to let Remus know that the particular look he'd been giving her tonight, and the accompanying husky tone, held as much power over her as the Imperius Curse might.

_"Star of wisdom,_

_Star of sight,_

_Star our path doth bring to light._

_Future reading,_

_Forward leading,_

_Guide us with thy seeing light."_

"I told you," said Remus, halting again as they reached the side street down which Tonks' flat lay. "Lovely."

He swept her hair back from her forehead and kissed her. His lips were cold, but she wasn't sure that was the cause of the shiver that coursed down her spine.

Remus slipped behind her, and Tonks heard the shopping back rustle as he set it on an iron bench before his arms slipped around her waist. He drew her firmly against his chest, hands clasped at her middle; Tonks covered them with her own, smiling at the contrast of his sensible brown leather gloves against her festive red and green striped ones, then looked up at the stars the clouds had obscured the past few nights.

They were so bright; the flickering street lamps were unnecessary. Tonks was glad the lamps were lit -- they lent to the romantic Christmas ambiance. But the stars...Merlin, they were _brilliant_. She understood why her relatives were so obsessed with the names of them, and why Seers turned to them, and why there were so many Christmas songs about them. The stars ran their courses year after year, century after century, and always would. The world might change -- it was changing, now -- but the stars remained the same no matter what happened below on earth. Their eternal beauty was a comfort.

Remus' chin, barely rough with a day's growth of beard, rubbed against her cheek. "What do the stars show _your_ inner eye?"

With all her usual aplomb for having the most inappropriate reaction to a given situation, Tonks, despite part of her screaming at her that Remus' scruff and flirtation were dead sexy, snorted at the phrase _inner eye_. As if that weren't enough, she realised that Remus had, unwittingly, presented her with the perfect opportunity to get to the bottom of all his funny business.

Never one to resist the chance at impersonation, Tonks turned in his encircling arms, morphed her hair into a wild, frizzy mane, and conjured a pair of spectacles that were sure to magnify her eyes and make her look like an insect.

"Oh, Merlin..." Remus' arms fell to his sides as he laughed and stepped back from Tonks. "You know I spent my year at Hogwarts running away from Sibyll..."

Tonks raised her hands and waved them around in the airy manner of a seer, and adopted the breathy tones of the Hogwarts Divination professor.

"A cold, void awaits you. No kisses if you do not let the pink-haired Auror in." She leant a little closer to him, morphing her legs so that her nose touched his. The thick glasses obscured her vision, but Remus seemed to be going cross-eyed. She went in for the kill. "Why have you behaved so strangely about that book?"

Tonks stepped back from him, folded her arms across her chest, expecting him to make up excuses, or change the subject altogether.

Instead Remus, red in the face, blurted, "Because I'm Anonymous."

Tonks was so astonished that she reverted to the morph she'd worn before the Trelawney one.

"You're...?"

She yanked off the glasses, and blinked rapidly to help her eyes adjust to the change.

"You're Anonymous? You...D'you mean...?"

Her eyes darted to the shopping bag still looped over her elbow, settling on the corner of the book just visible through the tissue paper.

"You wrote...?"

She looked up.

Remus nodded.

"No. You're _joking_."

"I know it sounds like the sort of thing I'd joke about," said Remus, stepping closer to her, laying his hands on her shoulders, "but I assure you..."

"It's not your story! The bloke was bitten when he was a teenager, and he never mentioned Hogwarts..."

"I couldn't tell _my_ story. It would have incriminated Dumbledore in allowing a Dark Creature to attend school without the Board of Governors' vote. And much as I wanted to express myself, I...I couldn't be outed."

Logical as it sounded, as much as it explained Remus' strange, embarrassed behaviour since he'd found her reading the book, it was preposterous. Half-laughing that Remus had thought up such a brilliant bluff (had he been playing her since Flourish and Blotts, or only just now?), yet slightly irritated that he thought she might honestly buy it, Tonks delved into her bag for the book and drew it out. She nearly tore the jacket as she opened to the title page.

"This was published in 1975. You were only--"

"Sixteen."

Remus glanced over his shoulder and seated himself on the bench behind them. He looked a little shaky. Tonks had to hand it to him; he was a marvellous actor.

"I wrote it over summer holidays," he went on. "James and Sirius and Peter went on holiday with the Potters, and I could not go with them, for obvious reasons." Rather than the regret any other man's face would have shown, a fond smile crossed Remus' face. "They'd just learnt Animagery, and...well I missed them very much, and boredom apparently makes me sentimental..." He folded his hands on his lap, and looked up at her. "So I started writing a book. Fictionalised. Dumbledore helped me get it published."

Tonks stood gawping at him for a moment, studying him, searching his face, obscured by shadows and changing in the flickering lamplight, for the telltale sign that this was a great Marauder prank. Only not so _very_ great, because she would not be caught in it.

But Remus' eyes regarded her steadily, reflecting the starlight.

Legs no longer trustworthy, Tonks collapsed onto the bench beside him and ran a hand through her hair.

"You're bloody telling the truth. You really..." A shriek of laughter pushed itself from her lungs, startling a lone witch closing up shop, as Tonks heard her own voice telling Remus how the anonymous werewolf author's writing style reminded her of him. She poked him playfully in the shoulder. "I _knew_ it sounded like you!"

Remus folded his arms and hunched his shoulders sulkily. "I find it somewhat distressing that you can recognise my voice in an emotional teenager's."

Tonks laughed again. "And you do realise you look very much like an emotional teenager just now?"

He glared, but his eyes twinkled, and finally he gave in to low chuckles and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, hugging her snugly against his side. Tonks turned slightly more into him as her arm slid under his, around his back, and the other draped across his waist. As his other hand moved to rest on her arm, she leant her cheek against the worn, soft fabric of his coat, loving the rumble of laughter in his chest.

They remained seated like that, embracing one another, for some time after their laughter faded away. Occasionally Remus' hand drifted up from her shoulder to caress her hair, or he bent his head to nuzzle his cheek against it and kiss the festive red locks. Tonks assumed that since he was being so affectionate, he must have got over his initial embarrassment at his girlfriend discovering the book he'd written at age sixteen...Did that mean the subject was open for discussion? There was so much she had wanted to say and ask before she'd known, and now that she did know...

"I always wondered how you were getting by between jobs," Tonks said, without thinking, and then immediately covered her face with her hands and groaned into her fingers. "Oh, bloody Merlin's beard! What I said in the shop about royalties..."

"Yes, the royalties from your two purchases paid for our drinks."

His tone was dry, but Tonks, knowing it most likely was not that great an exaggeration, made a strangled scream into her palms. "And those were _your_ parents I was going on about..."

For some reason -- or rather, due to utter _lack _of reason -- it seemed like the time to pull her hands away from her face and look at Remus. She actually began to breathe again when she saw him smiling, a tender look in his eyes as though this comment had pleased him very much.

Sitting up a little straighter, Tonks pressed one hand against his chest. "I wish I could have met them. They really sound like they were wonderful people."

"Have you any idea how much it means to me that you could infer that just from reading my silly book? " Remus' hand moved to clasp hers. He squeezed it, and looked her in the eyes. "I wish they could have met you, too."

Tonks' heart beat wildly at the slightly -- consciously -- altered wording of his agreement. His lips, curved in that private smile only _she _ever had the pleasure of seeing, looked so inviting, but she restrained herself from crushing her lips against his and snogging him senseless in the middle of Diagon Alley.

"Your mum wouldn't be put off by your pink haired girlfriend?" she asked.

"You're not pink at the moment." Remus tugged at one of the festive scarlet strands. "It might have unsettled her a bit more than me shedding on the carpet."

"All right then, you great prat, I think that's quite enough--"

"Of the cold?" Remus interrupted, removing his arm from around her as he got to his feet. "I agree."

He offered a hand up to her and, shopping bags once more in tow, they resumed their walk, turning down the narrower street that led to Tonks' flat. She wondered if she offered him a nightcap, he would stay. She was about to flirt with him and say she might have a smutty paperback lying about somewhere -- or could transfigure one of her old Auror novels into one -- when another thought distracted her.

"Are you going to let the bloke we're giving it to in on your little authorial secret?"

She looked up at him, and to her surprise, Remus actually wore an expression that indicated he was considering her question.

"It sort of undermines the encouragement I'd like to give him about leading a fairly normal life in society, doesn't it," he asked, "if I give him a book I haven't followed up on since I was sixteen?"

"Why _don't _you write a revised version?" Tonks suggested, eagerly. "Now you've been outed, you can publish under your own name, and after the whole Hogwarts scandal, you're pretty famous, so it'd be sure to sell--"

Immediately, Tonks reached out, as though to catch the words she wished unsaid. _Bloody hell!_ She never thought she'd be able to make a worse suggestion than the time she'd broken yet another of Professor Snape's potion phials, and she told him he ought to consider keeping a supply of plastic ones on hand for when she was in his class. She tripped over a pile of rubbish in the street and flailed for balance, but Remus' hand held hers firmly, and kept her upright.

He smiled down into her eyes. "Including a chapter entitled 'Werewolves In Love'?"

Tonks stopped dead in her tracks, hand slack in Remus'.

_A chapter entitled..._

Had he really just said...

..._in love_?

No -- she'd been stupid, and clumsy. He was teasing her. He...

...was looking at her that way again.

He was smiling, all over, mouth and eyes.

"You..." Tonks' voice cracked as her heart lodged in her throat, and she could only manage a whisper. "You're in love...with _me_?"

Remus ducked his head, fringe falling over his forehead in that way that made him look oh-so-sixteen, and made Tonks wonder how he'd not had a chapter on werewolves in love in the original book.

He reached for her hands. "Why else would I wrap your Christmas presents myself?"

Heart turning over, Tonks laughed."I should've known."

"So should I."

Remus brought her hands up, curving them toward his chest, and bent to drop fleeting kisses on them.

"I think I've been in love with you for some time," he said, between kisses. "Maybe since I met you..." He looked up at her, eyes locking. "But I only realised tonight, when you were reading aloud. You're...so passionate. And so wonderful."

His hands released hers, and she immediately missed his warm touch, except it was warmer as his palms cupped her face, and he leant his forehead against hers as he murmured, "I love you. So very much."

He moved to kiss her mouth, but Tonks held back just as she felt the barest touch of his lips.

"I don't think taciturn's such an apt description for you. And...I love you, too."

When he leant in again to kiss her, Tonks did not pull away. Not just because his lips, his tongue, his fingers on her face rendered her totally incapable of movement, but because she felt like she was in a dream. Had Remus Lupin _really _just declared his love, because they'd gone Christmas shopping and she picked up a random book to read, which turned out to have been written by him twenty years ago?

Tonks pulled her mouth from his, and delved into her shopping bag once more. She held the book out to a stunned, breathless, and frustrated looking Remus. "Will you autograph it for me?"

He laughed, looked down, shoved his hands into his deep coat pockets, and nudged a loose cobble with his toe. "Don't be silly."

"I'm not being silly," Tonks said so vehemently that Remus looked up again. "You may not be proud of this, but I'm proud of you."

For just a second she looked into his bright, intense eyes, and then his hands were gripping her arms firmly as he kissed her deeply, thoroughly, slowly. Tonks felt the love he'd professed in his kiss -- Merlin she felt it, all the way down to her toes, just like that look she'd seen earlier. How had she not recognised...? She'd been too wrapped up in trying to figure out his reaction to the book, too concerned with her own missteps. Well, she was glad for every one of them tonight, since it had brought her this. And Remus' low murmurs and moans as she kissed him back told her he was, too.

After one final, soft longing kiss, Remus gently prised the book from Tonks' hands, took a quill from his coat pocket, and turned away to write. As he did, Tonks bounced on her toes, both in an effort to keep warm and because there was simply too much joy bubbling up within her _not _to bounce.

Remus turned back to her, and Tonks laughed as he presented her with the book -- wrapped in shiny gold paper with a red velvet ribbon.

"My apologies for not battling Spellotape," Remus said, "but I had to make do with Conjuring."

"Do I have to save it for Christmas?"

"From Tonks to Tonks, remember?"

She tore away the paper, which Remus vanished with a disinterested flick of his wand as he kept his eyes on her, and then opened the book. On the flyleaf, Remus' meticulous script read:

_"To Nymphadora, who holds my human heart in her hands."_

Tonks wondered that she didn't start bouncing again, especially as she read the closing:

_"With love,"_

But the signature kept her rooted firmly to the pavement.

_"Anonymous"_

Tonks looked up sharply at his face, muscles twitching as he held back laughter. "Why you--_git_!"

"Tap your wand to it," Remus said.

Tonks arched a sceptical eyebrow at him, but did as he instructed, and muttered, "_Revelo_."

Underneath the words With love, the signature Anonymous morphed into the signature, Remus J. Lupin x. Tonks laughed because of course a seasoned prankster like Remus wouldn't be straightforward about owning up to a lifelong secret of this magnitude. Though her heart also constricted with a pang that it yet remained a secret from the world at large, Tonks thrilled that he'd chosen to share it with her. even though shared with her. 

This book, which Remus had written when his dear friends and family had filled his fearful young heart with hopes and dreams, had, after so many years of loneliness and hardship, rekindled hope again tonight. because she stumbled upon the book completely by accident. Or maybe not. Maybe fate had led her to it. Grinning sidelong at Remus, Tonks gave in to the ridiculous urge to burst out in song in the middle of the street.

_"O Diagon, in London town, where wizard folk reside,_

_Above thy dark and crooked streets, the guiding stars do shine._

_On wizard hearts they shine down with all-foreseeing light,_

_The hopes and fears of all the years revealed above tonight."_

Joy bubbled inside Tonks, making her insides dance at the prospect that Remus saw in _her_ the possibility of realising that wished-for future.

_"Mysterious, mysterious, the gift of Sight is giv'n;_

_So stars impart to human hearts the prophecies of heav'n._

_No wand may stay their coming, but in this present grim,_

_Where brave souls will accept them still, that bless'd hope enters in."_

"Merry Christmas, Nymphadora," Remus said, pulling her and the book close and kissing her breathless. "And if the future does bring that revised version, it'll be dedicated to you."

_To be continued..._

* * *

**_A/N: Reviewers get their own copy of Hairy Snout, Human Heart, with the Remus autograph of their choice: boyishly shy Remus, who simply signs his name with a kiss after; cheeky Marauder Remus, who requires a Revelo charm in order to read the true message; or sincere Remus, who writes you a message that just makes you melt._**


	3. 1996: In Despair I Bow My Head 1

The lyrics to "I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day" were written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1864.

* * *

**1996: In Despair I Bowed My Head, Part One**

"Well!" As Tonks reached the front of the queue at the Leaky Cauldron bar, Tom's face split in a toothless grin. "If it ain' Nyma...Nypha...er..."

The gap between the barman's bushy eyebrows disappeared in an expression of utter befuddlement as he realised he'd got to work out how to pronounce her Christian name without the assistance of teeth. It was amusing enough to outweigh the annoyance of anyone using the wretched name to begin with -- except now it brought the new annoyance of not being able to laugh at the first truly amusing thing she'd heard in ages.

"Bugger it," Tom muttered, then shrugged and flashed his gummy grin again as he stuck out his large hand for Tonks to shake. "If it ain' Auror Tonks!" he said as if there had been no previous attempt at a greeting. "Almos' din' recognise you wi'out yer crazy hair."

"Wotcher, Tom," Tonks returned flatly, her grip going slack in his after just a single pump.

She knew the feeling of deflation well these days and, frankly, was sick of it. If one more acquaintance commented on her appearance, she was going to do something decidedly un-Aurorly. Couldn't a girl go brown after months of outlandish colours without everyone assuming there was something wrong with her? Surely they ought to think the opposite, that she'd got over whatever madness had possessed her to look bizarre? Her mother would think like that -- but of course would want Tonks to morph something more glamorous than her natural hair colour. It was exactly why her next stop after she warmed up was the owl post office; she just wanted to mail off her presents, hole up in her flat, and avoid the whole season of goodwill toward men that made people nosier than usual.

"Hot chocolate, please?" she asked, though her words were drowned out by a jangling bell as the front door opened, and a group of Hogwarts boys trampling in, roughhousing, sniggering, and hurling playful insults at each other.

"Eh?" Tom asked, leaning toward her and curving a hand round his ear. "Wassat?"

Tonks' ears rang with the din, all the more cacophonous as an upbeat carol blared over the wireless. _Why_ hadn't she just gone home to her flat for hot chocolate? She'd no idea what to buy the last person on her shopping list anyway, and it wasn't as if a drink at the Leaky would bring her an epiphany.

She leant over the bar and spoke loudly and deliberately, as though to a deaf man. "Hot chocolate?"

"Sure, sure!" The barman reached overhead for a mug hanging underneath the panelled shelving above. "You ain' been in 'ere in an age. Then, I reckon the Ministry's keepin' you lot workin' eight days a week?"

"More like nine or ten. And there's about forty-eight hours in each." Hearing the complaining note in her voice, and noting the wrinkles across Tom's brow, Tonks realised she was hardly doing her part to keep up public morale. She added, more cordially, and with a smile, "I've been stationed in Hogsmeade, s'why I haven't been in."

"You got time off for Christmas, then?" Tom asked over his shoulder as he poured her hot chocolate.

"Few days, yeah."

He nodded to the shopping bags she was resting on a barstool. "Doin' yer Christmas shopping 'fore you 'ead up to Manchester?"

Tonks tensed, but fought not to show it. Tom was just being friendly. He was a barman. The wizarding world was a small community, and she'd always been a bit of a curiosity in it, due to what she was, where she came from, and where she did. She ought to be used to this. Expect it. Prepare herself. "No, I'm staying in London."

"Yer folks comin' down 'ere to spend Christmas with you an'..." His eyes rolled upward to the ceiling as he held the mug over the bar, then darted back to her. "It's that Lupin yer seein', ain' it? Merlin's beard, you'll 'ave to send yer dad in fer a drink. I ain' seen 'im since..."

"Mum and Dad aren't coming down," Tonks interrupted as Tom muttered unintelligibly to himself about the last time he'd seen Ted. "And I'm not seeing anyone."

She plonked her money down on the counter, took the mug of hot chocolate his hand had gone slack around, and with a quick _Merry Christmas_, wheeled away from him. She navigated herself hurriedly through the maze of tables and chairs to find a table in a dark corner where hopefully no one would recognise her. En route, she tried not to see the happy witches and wizards who'd got the same idea as her and stopped in for a break, but her eyes went to them all. She caught snatches of conversations between husbands and wives about the states of their vaults, presents for their children, where to put the houseguests, visits to in-laws; boyfriends and girlfriends engaged in coy flirtation about where they wanted to hang mistletoe; a blonde girl Tonks had seen snogging Ron Weasley in Hogsmeade squabbled with her mother about how much she'd spent on his Christmas present. Tonks shoved aside the niggling thought that she was the only person alone in the tavern. This was _her _choice. She hadn't been given a lot of choices this year, but by Merlin she knew what was best for her.

She bee-lined for the first empty table she saw, a corner booth by the fireplace, only to realise, too late, after she'd barricaded herself into the corner with shopping bags all around, that it was the very table where she and Remus had taken a hot chocolate break from the bustle of last year's Christmas shopping.

_Remus_.

Her cocoa tasted bitter as her eyes found the parchment sticking out from one of her shopping bags. Tonks drew it out. Her gift list. Remus' name headed it, and was the only one not scratched out; it was also the only one followed by a trio of question marks.

What did you get the wizard who'd given up everything? 

Especially when he hadn't contacted you at all in the six months since he'd broken up with you.

She set down her hot cocoa and slumped forward, hands raking through her hair, clutching the lank brown strands she hated. _Why _hadn't he written to her? She knew he was limited even with Order communications, but couldn't he at least send a note to let her know he was all right? Of course, she hadn't exactly shown him she wanted to hear from him, with the way she'd been avoiding gatherings where she heard he'd be present. As she was going to do again tomorrow.

Tonks bit her lower lip as she stared down into her hot chocolate. Merlin knew she _wanted_ to go to the Burrow. To be among the Weasley family -- the twins who never failed to make her laugh, Ginny who had a way of making her feel cool like few people did, Arthur and Molly who knew more about her these days than her own parents did... Last year they'd all managed to make so merry even though Arthur had nearly died just days before. They would do again this year, even as the war brought a little more darkness each day. Yes, the Burrow was exactly where anyone would want to be for Christmas.

Remus would be there...

And yet she _couldn't_ go. Because Remus would be there. Not only that, but Ginny would, no doubt, look at her with troubled eyes; Molly had told Tonks that the kids all thought the battle at the Department of Mysteries had cracked her, made her lose her nerve. Not that Molly had used those exact words. But Tonks wasn't an Auror for nothing; she could read between lines.

And it was so very petty of her, but Tonks couldn't bear to see Bill and Fleur, making plans for their wedding -- especially not when Remus would be there and there would be no being together, or dreaming of their own future. He couldn't want that, or he'd have contacted her...

It would make him so uncomfortable, her being there, looking like this, still loving him...

Molly would try and push them together, and make it worse, and Remus would feel just awful...He needed this holiday at the Burrow more than anyone...Tonks couldn't spoil it for him, certainly not in front of Harry and the kids, who looked up to him so...

It would be her gift to him: a happy Christmas.

She looked down at her list again, and reached into her cloak for a quill. For a moment, the tip hovered over the parchment, and then she pressed it to the paper in front of his name. She could do this. She could scratch his name off the list now...She could let him go. Concede defeat. Move on.

But just as she was about to scratch through Remus' name, Myron Wagtail's bright tenor, accompanied by the mellow notes of a lute and cello duet, drifted over the wireless in the Weird Sisters' Christmas single: "But starlight told me, brighter still: 'Never give in, don't lose will!" 

Tonks' fingers went slack around the quill; they felt physically unable to perform the task she wanted them to -- all too like the broken sensation of no longer having the magic to morph. She couldn't give up. Not without a fight. Not before she knew whether he still loved her...how he was getting along without her.

Her gaze wandered out the grimy window, and she leant close, shivering as the cold air pervaded through the pane, and took in the stars in the sky overhead.

The Weird Sisters weren't on anymore; it was "Three Centaurs In Forests Far," -- but it was her voice, resonating in her own memory, that Tonks heard, echoing in the empty streets of Diagon Alley as she and Remus walked, hand in hand, through the cold. _"What do the stars show your inner eye?" _And Tonks had done an impression of Sybill Trelawney, prophesying: _"A cold, void awaits you. No kisses if you do not let the pink-haired Auror in." _

It had been teasing blackmail, but it had led to Remus' confession to being the anonymous author of _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_ -- as well as the more amazing revelation that he had fallen in love with her.

And yet now it seemed very much as though she'd spoken with a degree of genuine foresight: everything had fallen apart when Remus had gone where duty sent him and shut the door on her.

_Why _had he done? Hadn't she shown him again and again that she was more than able to go where he went? And even if she couldn't physically, at least he could know she was waiting for him on the other side? What was so bad that he wouldn't let her see from a distance?

What did he mean, he was _too dangerous_? Did he mean the other werewolves might try to hurt her, because of him? Either way, it didn't make sense. Unless he knew something about where he was going that she didn't. Which was unlikely to an extent -- but it wasn't as if she hadn't had training in werewolf handling. Or that she hadn't imperilled herself with her involvement in the Order. Remus knew all this.

No -- whatever fears Remus was hiding from her lay within himself, either surfacing suddenly when Dumbledore had assigned him to go underground, or had lain dormant for years. _What were they?_ She had to know. Maybe he would never be with her again; but she needed to know why, or she'd never move on.

She took a sip of hot chocolate -- it had gone lukewarm -- and stood suddenly. She knew exactly what to get Remus for Christmas.

Turning up her collar, hunching her shoulders against the cold, Tonks stepped out into the dark, crooked streets of Diagon Alley and headed for Flourish and Blotts.

* * *

"I'm sorry, dear." Molly caught her lower lip between her teeth and peered up guiltily from the grate of Tonks' small fireplace of chipped tile and cracked moulding. "I didn't mean to divulge all your secrets, but Remus asked how you were doing apart from the Patronus change..."

"No," Tonks, who had been picking at a loose thread in the teal hearthrug, broke in gently. "It's okay." Impulsively, she reached out to pat Molly's shoulder -- except there were no shoulders sticking out of the Floo to pat. She withdrew her hand, wrapped it around her knees, and hugged them to her chest. "I've wanted to tell him. He's just...got more than enough to worry about without fretting over the colour of my hair."

The guilty expression fell away from Molly's face as her mouth and eyebrows drew themselves into a scowl. Tonks could just imagine her arms akimbo on the other side of the Floo.

"If you ask me," Molly said, "the colour of your hair ought to be the thing he worries _most _about." A reminiscent look coming into her eyes, she said, in less accusatory tones, "It might be now. I've never seen him that worked up."

Back and shoulders snapping rigid, Tonks clutched her legs tighter; her fingernails dug into the skin of her knees where her jeans were torn. She'd never doubted Remus would careabout what she was going through after their break-up. What she _wanted_ was for him to see how very wrong it was for them to be apart. Somehow, that didn't seem to her what Molly was implying.

"Was he...cross?" Tonks asked.

"Oh no, nothing like that, dear." Molly shook her head vigorously. "Not cross at all. Worried -- a bit like when you were hurt last summer. Only more than that. Guilty, too, I think..."

She frowned as she contemplated Remus' reaction, which Tonks wished she could have seen -- though she'd have driven herself mental trying to work out the meaning of every furrow in his forehead, the set of his jaw, the lines around his mouth, the shadows in his eyes.

"But mostly shocked," Molly said decisively. "_Completely_ shocked."

Tonks' hands wandered up to tug at her messy locks of hair. Would Remus have been _less_ shocked if she'd sent him a message via werewolf Patronus that she was so depressed that she'd got stuck with mousy brown hair?

Merlin, what was she supposed to have done? Why should he be shocked at all, anyway? He'd broken up with her, damn it! What did he bloody expect?

Molly tilted her face upward conspiratorially, and Tonks leant toward her, wondering, as the older witch spoke, whether Molly had read her mind. "I got the distinct impression that Remus thought you'd have got over him while he was gone."

Eyes smarting, Tonks sat back on her heels and looked away from the fire. Why she was surprised, she'd no idea; Remus had said as much when he'd broken up with her.

But she'd never dreamed he really _believed _she'd get over him...not in so little time...Did it do a greater injustice to her, she wondered, or to himself?

She couldn't ignore the heaviness that gripped her heart that he had so little faith in the constancy of her love. Yet she knew Remus trusted her implicitly. Somehow, this translated to Remus not trusting his own lovability.

To Tonks, how little he thought of himself cut more deeply than however little he thought of her.

What the hell was this damn mission doing to him? 

Molly, apparently, had not stopped talking during Tonks' musings. "...think he expected to see you happy, and he'd feel he'd done the right thing. He said it was difficult enough with the entire Order telling him he was wrong, and didn't need magic conspiring against him, as well."

Tonks looked up sharply. "You don't mean..."

As suddenly as her heart had turned to lead and settled weightily at the bottom of her stomach, it now inflated, balloon-like, and floated up to lodge in her throat, where it choked out a puff of laughter. Tonks could just picture Remus, wrong-footed, and world-weary, yet saying about magic conspiring with his friends against him in that dry way of his.

"He's not...?" Tonks paused. Did she really dare hope? She blurted, "Is he reconsidering?"

Molly gave a very small smile, and her hand reached out of the fire to pat one of Tonks' -- which she hadn't realised till now were clutching the corners of the hearthrug as if she were riding a magic carpet.

"I think you two desperately need to see each other," Molly said.

It wasn't quite the answer Tonks had hoped for. Then again, had she _really _expected one of the most private -- as well as one of the most stubborn -- men alive to tell Molly he'd seen the light and would put things to rights with Tonks immediately? Knowing him, he was wearing holes in the already shabby carpet in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, as he brooded over how on earth to proceed.

"Right." Tonks nodded, once. "I'll pop over in a tick."

Brown eyes brightening, Molly squeezed Tonks' hand, then withdrew it back to her end of the Fireplace Floo. "Are you sure you don't want some of our leftover turkey and veg? You could take a bit over for a late supper with Remus."

Tonks smothered a laugh. There wasn't a chance Molly hadn't sent Remus back to Grimmauld with enough leftovers for Remus to eat Christmas dinner every day till next Christmas. And share with all the werewolves underground, too.

"Way to a man's heart's through his stomach?" Tonks asked. "Thanks, Molly, but Mum already sent me hers."

Molly smiled, but one of her eyebrows hitched upward in a look of scepticism. "I suppose Andromeda knows that little spell for keeping the turkey from drying out during Floo travel?"

"Yeah."

Tonks thought she might, literally, burst with laughter, it was so difficult to keep her chortle at bay. Merlin, it was good to feel like this again. Her utter lack of information about how Remus was doing, or how he felt about her, had cast a shadow over everything. But now, the prospect of what might happen now the truth was out, and he could see for himself how nothing could make her stop loving him...She gave in to that chuckle.

"Mum's turkey came through nice and tender."

"Hm." Molly gave a little sniff, then smiled as her appraising gaze lit a little lower down from Tonks' face. "Your jumper looks nice."

Tonks grinned down at the magenta and lime green diamond-patterned jumper a disgruntled looking Pigwigeon had delivered early that morning, before Tonks had got out of bed.

"Great colours and pattern," Tonks said, wondering if her spirits might be lifted enough for her to match her hair to the chartreuse hue. "Thanks for sending it. Merry Christmas, Molly, and I'm sorry things were awkward with Percy."

Molly's eyes misted, but she smiled, clearly appreciating the sentiment. Tonks was sure that if this conversation were not occurring via Floo, Molly would have caught her in a fierce hug and got Tonks' jumper soggy. "Merry Christmas, dear. And good luck."

Before Tonks could blink, Molly's head vanished from the fire. Tonks had no doubt Molly expected her to not to waste a second taking her place in the Floo -- but instead of getting to her feet and reaching for the decoupage box of Floo Powder on the mantel, Tonks turned up the wireless volume -- a wizard quartet were singing "While Centaurs Watched the Stars By Night" -- dashed to her bathroom, and rifled through her drawer for her powder compact.

No sooner had Tonks flipped it open, however, than a crack -- undoubtedly of Apparition -- in the corridor outside her flat made her jump. She jumped again at a rap on her front door.

"Who in Merlin's name?" Tonks muttered as she abandoned her makeup, drew her wand, and made her way through the lounge. Molly wouldn't come over, knowing Tonks was on her way to Grimmauld--

Tonks stopped, stock still, in the ill-lit, pokey entryway of her flat. One hand clutched her wand almost hard enough to snap it; the other reached out to the wall, for support.

It couldn't be Remus? The image of him pacing the mouldy corridors of Grimmauld Place was too strong for her to believe he could be calling--

Another, more tentative knock.

Tonks flicked her wand over her shoulder to turn down the wireless. "Who's there?"

She caught her breath.

Her heart thudded, once, then stood still.

"Remus."

_To be continued..._

* * *

**A/N: Thanks to all of you who are following this story, despite the lack of update alerts. I appreciate your feedback. This time, reviewers get to have the first word when Remus comes knocking for the first time in months...**


	4. 1996: In Despair I Bow My Head 2

**1996: In Despair I Bowed My Head, Part Two**

Wand hand falling slack at her side, Tonks leant heavily against the wall. Dear Merlin...Remus _had _come. He wasn't alone in that great, gloomy house...He was _here_. After six months of silence, _he'd come to see her. _Quite impulsively -- given that Molly had Flooed the moment the Burrow door shut behind Remus. It had to be a good sign, that he hadn't brooded over the decision to see her.

Straightening up, Tonks reached for the doorknob -- but stopped short when she glimpsed her reflection in the mirror hung next to the door. She ran a hand through her lank hair. Merlin, she looked _dreadful_. Why couldn't she have sucked up irritation for once, taken her mother's advice to put on makeup in case of unannounced Christmas visitors?

Could she morph? That earlier bravado seemed to have deserted her.

"Tonks?" came Remus' hoarse voice.

"D'you wrap your gifts?" Tonks asked, by way of security question -- and to stall. She scrunched up her face and watched the reflection of her hair for a flicker of the lime green in her jumper. "Or do you do it yourself?"

"I--"

Remus spoke no further and Tonks, mind's eye seeing his face take on an ashen pallor as he shuffled back from the door with slumped shoulders, clapped a hand over her mouth. Her face went pink, though not from any morph. _Bloody hell_. She'd just blurted the question out, unthinking, yet it had come out so..._pointed_. Bitter, even.

_Not_, Tonks thought as she frowned at her coif that hadn't even changed one strand, _that Remus didn't deserve a pointed comment or two._

But she'd never got pleasure out of that sort of duel. Her flush deepened as she considered that he might have felt it as a barb about his financial state; guilt twisted her stomach sickeningly when Remus' voice -- tight, though not with resentment -- answered, "I have them wrapped -- except for yours."

Tonks stumbled over several pairs of shoes piled up next to the door, caught her foot on the corner as she flung it open, and tumbled out into the corridor -- into Remus' ready arms.

Everything inside loosened at the feel of him helping her regain balance, and her arms shot around his waist and hugged him fiercely. She let out a shuddering breath against him as his own embrace tightened around her.

Remus was holding her, _really holding her_.

She inhaled, and breathed deeply of his scent: the strong, masculine sweetness of shaving lotion, the faintly citric, salty tang of soap. It was the smell that haunted her dreams which, when she awoke alone in the night, she sought in the vacant side of her bed, in the un-slept on pillow, in the t-shirt he'd forgotten in his frenzied haste to leave her.

He was here now. In the flesh, his clothes warm with _him_--

She noticed a new smell, clinging to his overcoat: the acrid musk of campfire smoke. This unfamiliar detail alerted her attention to the fact that the garment hung too loosely from his frame.

"My God, Remus," Tonks half-whispered, pulling back from him. "You're so _thin_."

His lips twitched in a ghost of a smile. "And a good deal greyer."

Of course he meant his hair, but Tonks' gaze fixed on his face...His dear face, which always seemed so young, the lines about his eyes and mouth indicative of frequent smiles and laughter, well suited to his warm, jocular personality. For the first time, Tonks did think Remus looked older than his years; he _was_ grey. Tired...Troubled.

Yet as she reached her fingers up to trace his soft, too-long hair back from his face, the lines shifted, relaxed. His smile stretched, and as his eyes sought hers, she saw light creeping into the blue.

"I don't care," Tonks said, and hugged him again. His arms tightened around her, one hand holding her head to his chest. Through his flimsy overcoat, his collarbones, his hips, pressed into her. Merlin, he was _thin_. But Tonks buried her face in his scarf and repeated, as much to herself as to him, "I don't care. You're _Remus_, and you're _here_."

Remus said nothing.

His silence bothered her, but Tonks was at a loss to formulate what he could have said. _It's good to see you_ might not be true. _I'm here now_ held meanings he might not be willing to allow. Was there any hope in the fact that he hadn't pronounced the grim _for now_? Was he _truly_ here, with her? Sure, he was returning her affection -- but there was something detached about the way his fingers stroked her hair. When they were together and he'd held her like this, he'd let her hair wrap around his knuckles or slide between his long, graceful fingers. His present thoughts must be focused her morphing troubles.

Everything they hadn't said hung thickly between them.

Abruptly, Tonks released him, and stepped back. She fully intended to say something conversational, but instead blurted, "Molly-Flooed-and-said-you-know-about-my-Patronus."

Remus looked at her for a long moment, a crease between his eyes. His hesitation, Tonks guessed, was not down to a struggle to process whether she'd spoken English, but to formulate one of his careful, Remus answers.

"Harry said. How...?" His voice was very hoarse. He cleared his throat, and brought his eyes back to hers. "How did Harry know?"

Tonks sensed an undertone that Remus was somehow _put out _that Harry knew and he didn't. Annoyance welled up again. He insisted they not see each other anymore, then faulted her for not talking to him. The nerve of that man.

She spun on her heel and strode into the flat. "Harry saw it," she flung back.

"Did he know your old one?"

"Snape saw it, too. And said about the change."

"Snape _taunted_ you about the change."

The forcefulness of his words made Tonks turn. His eyes were hard, brows drawn together, his jaw set as his lips pinched tightly together. At his sides, his fingers flexed.

The knot of irritation in Tonks' chest loosened.

He was being protective.

_He did care._

"You can come in," she said.

"Well." Remus shut the door behind him. "I certainly am glad I retain my ability to wind up Severus, even in spirit guardian form."

Tonks, who'd moved behind him to take his coat, laughed loudly, the sound ricocheting off the walls of the narrow entry. Remus' eyes were slightly wide as he turned to her, as though he hadn't intended to be funny. But then the mischievous twinkle gleamed, making them so bright and so blue. In the instant that their gazes locked, Tonks' breath hitched, squelching her laughter.

"I'm sorry," said Remus, very softly. "It's not funny, and I--"

"My Patronus is the last thing you need to apologise for. Can I take your coat?

Eyes never leaving hers, Remus slipped his arms out of his sleeves. "I'm sorry you spent Christmas alone."

His face obscured by sudden tears pricking her eyes, Tonks took his coat and wheeled to hang it on the hook by the door. "Still Christmas yet, isn't it? I've a present for you."

"Tonks, you shouldn't--"

She turned back and smiled to see his burgundy scarf -- tattier now than last winter -- dangling loose around his neck, complimenting a chocolate brown jumper. "That your Christmas jumper?"

"Oh." Remus glanced downward, picked at the garment, then shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. "Yes."

"Molly asked me what colour she should do for you this year."

Tonks had told him more than once how good he looked in rich brown. Her heart sped up to see the dawning on his face, and the same small, boyish smile as he ducked his head and the fringe fell into his eyes.

"I always knew you were plotting wardrobe domination."

"That scarf's the one thing I wouldn't replace with brown."

Remus looked up, eyes a little lower than her face. "That's yours, then."

Tonks eyes darted down to her vivid jumper. "Yeah. Molly owled it over this morning."

One of Remus' long-fingered hands emerged from his pocket to tug at the hair at his nape. "She, erm, let me hear about it."

Given a few of the looks that had accompanied Molly's Floo account of the day at the Burrow, Tonks could just imagine what Molly had let Remus hear about. She felt for him, she really did. Molly didn't quite understand how, though Remus had, undeniably, hurt Tonks, he hadn't precisely treated her _badly_. She didn't want for him to be tormented about it; she was sure he got quite enough of that from himself.

Still, she found herself smothering a laugh at the mental image of Molly glowering at Remus as she loaded a harassed-looking Pigwigeon up with the package.

The lines of Remus' face deepened. "You're not morphing."

"I've been worried about you."

Tonks turned away again. It had been one thing not to know what he was going through, and another entirely to see the physical toll it was taking on him. Much as she wanted Remus to know what their separation was doing to her, it didn't seem right, or fair, to add to his load.

She walked further into her lounge -- the baritone on the wireless was singing that he could be counted on to be home for Christmas. Tonks stopped short at the coffee table. Hadn't Remus done the same thing to her? He hadn't wanted to burden her with his mission. It drove her mental that he hadn't trusted her to be his partner even in this. She'd be a hypocrite if she wasn't honest with him.

"And I miss you," she said, looking at him.

Remus hung his head, guiltily.

Tonks' insides constricted. She didn't want him to feel guilty. She wanted him to say he missed her, too, and for him not to have a regret about it, because damn it, he had the _right_. Why couldn't he do that?

"I don't want to talk about morphing right now," said Tonks, brusquely. She bent and picked up a lumpy package wrapped in red paper with a white snowflake pattern. She'd wrapped it herself. And used far too much Spellotape. And made a right mess of the bow. Really, she ought to have shown Remus how special he was to her by having someone else wrap his gift. She thrust it toward him. "Merry Christmas."

To her surprise, Remus, who hadn't moved from the door, fixed her with his steady gaze and strode purposely toward her. He reached out one hand to take the present, and with the other touched her shoulder and gently turned her to face him directly.

"Thank you," he murmured, then bent and kissed her cheek.

Though Tonks wished his mouth was on her mouth, the softness of his lips, his warm breath as he lingered over her skin, sent shivers rippling up her spine, into her shoulders and down her arms. She closed her eyes, savouring the sensation that he was breathing in her scent as she had his. He had missed her, too, as much as she'd missed him -- his actions spoke so much more clearly than saying so could have. His fingers trailed up to caress the curve of her neck above her jumper.

As he drew back from her slowly, by minute increments, Tonks' lashes parted to meet his gaze. Her heart stopped at the longing she saw in the depths of the blue; she heard the depth of his love in his rasping, "Merry Christmas."

Time seemed to go on without her as she processed this; the next thing she knew, Remus had settled himself on the sofa, and was opening his present from one end. Tonks opened and closed her fingers, then twisted her hands in the hem of her voluminous jumper as he carefully separated the wrapping paper from the Spellotape. He grinned up at her once or twice -- words she was fairly certain were teasing on his lips, though she couldn't hear him for fretting over whether this had been the stupidest gift idea she'd ever had.

Oh Merlin, it was beyond stupid... Remus' smile fell away with the wrapping paper as he regarded the book in his hands.

_Hairy Snout, Human Heart. _

Remus stared at the cover for a long time, then (Were his hands trembling? Or was she?) opened the flyleaf. She'd written: _To the man who holds my human heart in his hands, from the woman who will never let go of his. _She darted her eyes to his face, but his expression was unreadable.

"The man I love wrote this book," Tonks heard herself say. "I wanted to get you the revised edition," she added, with a shaky laugh, "but unfortunately the author's...a bit busy...with spy work..."

"A man didn't write this," Remus interrupted, shaking his head, mouth curved in a slight, rueful smile. "A boy did. A foolish boy with a head full of impossible dreams."

Tonks flicked her wand toward the open bedroom door and Summoned the book from her bedside table. Catching it, she blundered around the coffee table to flop onto the sofa beside Remus.

"A man owned to it last year," she insisted, opening the creased cover. "_Revelo_," she said, and his tidy signature appeared in place of _Anonymous _beneath his inscription to her. "Remus J. Lupin is no fool. Not when he was a boy. Not now."

"But I am," said Remus, voice raw as his head dropped onto the back of the sofa, and he blinked at the ceiling. "They all think I'm a fool."

"Who?" Tonks asked -- though she knew perfectly well he meant the werewolves. The others. The poor men and women to whom Dumbledore had sent him with such an impossible errand. She quaked at the thought that those people could make Remus believe that of himself.

"Do you know who I met underground?" Remus asked, switching to an oddly conversational tone, turning his head toward her.

Almost dizzied by his abrupt shift of tone, Tonks couldn't imagine who he could have met underground that she would know, except Fenrir Greyback -- and she couldn't imagine Remus talking about him so casually.

"Jacob Shepherd."

The name sounded familiar, but Tonks couldn't place it.

"The fellow who was bitten last year," Remus explained. "The werewolf. I visited him at St. Mungo's."

Tonks looked down at the book clutched in her hands. "We gave him _Hairy Snout_."

Remus continued without acknowledging the last. "He doesn't go by Shepherd anymore, obviously." He set the book on the arm of the sofa, and folded his arms across his chest. Tonks noticed the frayed cuff of his shirt sleeve sticking out from the new jumper. "The irony of living among feral werewolves..." There was a bitter twist to his smile. "He is just Jake now."

"That's so sad," Tonks said, lamely, holding her copy of _Hairy Snout _to her chest. "I thought...we'd hoped...he'd try to lead a normal life, like you."

"He remembered me." Remus cut his eyes sidelong at her. "And he remembered you. He asked me what happened to my _normal _life."

He looked away, and Tonks watched his Adam's apple bob between the ends of his scarf and the tatty, dingy collar of his open shirt. He sat up straighter, unfolded his arms, rubbed his hands over the thighs of his trousers; all the while his eyes darted all over the lounge, never settling on anything. Tonks wanted to take his hand, or wrap her arms around his shoulders and cradle his head against her chest, but she couldn't move. She'd never seen him like this, so uncomfortable, struggling so to order his thoughts, control his words.

Suddenly his long, thin frame unfolded, and he was on his feet. Tonks sat upright, heart in her throat, sure he was going to leave.

But Remus went on, pacing as he talked. "He asked so many questions. I gave him all the reasonable, logical arguments I composed before I went underground..."

He spun on his heel to face her. "My story doesn't make sense, Tonks." Hands spread, palms up, he asked, "How can I convince them that our place is in wizarding society, when I don't even have a place here?"

Book slipping from her hands, pages crinkling as it landed spine up on the floor, Tonks stumbled to her feet. "You _do_."

"No."

Tonks stopped. And blinked.

Remus, shaking his head, resumed pacing. "I've got Order duties for a sense of purpose. My friendships are ones that I formed years ago. And you..." His voice caught, then he went on steadily. "But the others don't have those things. They've been shunned all their lives. Do you realise what a rarity you are among witches, Tonks?"

He dropped onto the sofa again and, elbows on the shiny knees of his worn trousers, raked his hands through his shaggy hair. It was _so _much greyer than it had been in June..Tonks wanted to say something, anything, but she could think of nothing. Remus didn't seem to expect her to talk -- and that made her speechlessness all the worse.

He turned his head, gaze settling on his book on the arm of the sofa. "I have been very fortunate in my experience. As a person, I am just like any of them, no better. Why should circumstances be any different for me?"

"_I cannot tell _you," Tonks said suddenly, tongue loosed by the flood of words which, over the past year, she'd come to know by heart, "how_ many times my mother said, "Don't ever let anyone treat you as less than a man just because you've got a hairy snout one night a month._"

Remus looked at her as she sat beside him, her knee and thigh and shoulder pressed against his, and gripped his hand."_You've always got a human heart." _

How long they stared at one another, Tonks had no idea, but she clutched his hand all the tighter, as though to will her conviction into him. Remus squeezed her hand, even smiled a little, but then he broke their eye contact and withdrew his hand.

"It's one thing, Tonks, to hold on to your dignity when humans try and take it from you. It is another, entirely, to wonder if you've really got any at all because others of your kind haven't."

Lips falling agape, Tonks shrank back. She'd been worried about Remus. Frightened. Terrified, evenBut it had all been for his safety, for his health--

--for his _life_.

She'd thought there could be nothing worse than mortal peril. Never had nightmares depicted him referring to _humans _as something he was not, or saying _my kind_ to relate himself to the pitiable, the wretched. Hopeless eyes had never haunted her. She had never known worry, or fear, or terror -- not really -- not till now.

"I cannot see any way out," he said, quietly, controlled. "That is why I cannot help them. I am no one's protector. I..." The slightest of hitches made him falter. He drew a deep breath, exhaled, slowly, then continued with even more of that damned calm resignation. "I am a fool. The greatest of fools."

"Remus, no--"

At the same time as she reached out for him, he turned, eyes locking with hers, and caught her hand. "A fool to think someone like me could have you."

Tonks started to protest again, but words lodged in her throat and were driven away by the sadness lacing his smile, his other hand wrapping around the one he held, completely encasing her fingers. His thumb chafed her skin as he pulled her hand against his chest.

"A fool to give you up."

Still speech eluded Tonks as she felt suspended, inside and out. She was talking to Molly in the fireplace Floo again. Remus had hoped she would move on so he could feel good about his choice. _Is he reconsidering? _Tonks had asked. Now she'd seen him, talked to him, she could see he didn't feel sure at all. She hated to hear him call himself a fool -- yet hope welled at the possibilities it might entail. Was all this a prelude to an apology, to asking her if they could start again?

But no -- _she _was the fool to hope. _He couldn't see any way out. He didn't think he was any different. _Desperation dulled the blue eyes that should have crackled with his confident energy. He was watching her, but with no expectation.

Out the corner of her eye, Tonks glimpsed her _Hairy Snout _lying where she'd carelessly dropped it on the floor. She pulled her hand from Remus' grasp and bent to pick it up.

As her fingers smoothed bent pages, rubbed over the spine, cracked from the number of times she'd read it, she thought of last year, when she'd discovered it. Remus had been so surprised by the things she'd said about him, and about werewolves -- _his kind_ -- in general. He hadn't expected it then, either. _He'd never expected_.

If only she could say something now. He'd confessed his love then, because her passion had stirred him. She could bring him out of this, could change everything, for both of them, with the right words...

...but she had none. She was too wrong-footed, too shaken. She'd known before that she relied on him, but now she saw just how much she'd depended on Remus to help her through these moments where she felt so inept and awkward...and foolish.

She laid the book on the coffee table as the bright, plucked tones of a lute resonated over the wireless, followed by the sonorous countermelody of a cello.

"Oh, Remus," said Tonks, breathless with gratitude to the Weird Sisters for sparing her this horrible moment, "you've got to hear this one."

Remus looked up at her, quizzically, as she flicked her wand at the wireless to raise the volume.

"It's the Weird Sisters' latest," Tonks said. "They've outdone themselves."

The corners of Remus' mouth turned upward slightly. "In the spirit of Christmas, I shall refrain from saying that to _outdo_ themselves implies they've already _done_ something."

Again, his sudden switch, this time to their old, comfortable banter, made Tonks a little slow with her reply, but after a moment of gawping at him, she poked him in the side with her wand and managed a playful tone. "Good, then I can refrain from hexing you."

Remus opened his mouth, but Tonks shushed him as the instruments cut back for Myron Wagtail to croon:

_"I saw the stars on Christmas night_

_And read the future in their light:_

_'The war is ended, love's defended_

_Peace on earth, good will to men.'_

Tonks glanced at Remus for his reaction. His head was bowed, but he seemed to be absorbed in the lyrics, not a hint of derisiveness that it was a Weird Sisters hit.

_I thought how brightly would they shine,_

_The stars down on all wizard-kind,_

_On soldiers fraught who bravely fought_

_For peace on earth, good will to men._

_But in despair I bowed my head_

_'There is no peace on earth,' I said,_

_'For hate has might and fights the light_

_Of peace on earth, good will to men.'_

The sofa shifted, and Tonks drew in a sharp breath as Remus' arm suddenly slipped behind her, pulling her close against his side. Yes -- this was what she'd tried to express to him before he went away last June, that he could turn to her, lean on her, that she would help him fight his battles as he would always fight alongside her. Thank Merlin for the Weird Sisters. She would be sure to buy a lot of t-shirts and posters to show her gratitude for this song that expressed what she could not, that spoke to the heart of a weary soldier.

She turned her face into the softness of Remus' jumper, and he rested his cheek on her head. His touch shouldn't be so comforting, shouldn't bring such relief when there had been no discussion of mending their relationship, but Tonks' allowed herself to heave a shuddering breath and relax completely in his encircling arms. She didn't care that he was too thin, or that he didn't think he was anyone's idea of a protector. This was all she'd wanted today. Remus was here, holding her.

The song crescendoed to a key change, the drum rolling as Gideon Crumb's bagpipes picked up the melody. Tonks' hand slipped over Remus' thigh when Myron's raw, lilting tenor began the final verse:

_"But starlight told me, even still: _

_'Never give in, don't lose will!_

_'The wrong shall fail, the right prevail_

_With peace on earth, good will to men.'"_

The entire band joined in to repeat the refrain. When Remus' warm, long fingers laced through Tonks', she felt the pulse in his wrist quicken. He lifted his head, she looked up and sought his eyes. There was light in them now, which communicated a promise -- not of a future, but of a night. Tonks tried not to feel the disappointment that there would be no talk of changing minds, of being together; there would be no love-making, or even kisses. There _would_ be fingers twined together, and an embrace that affirmed love even if the words were not uttered -- and there would be no arguments.

As if to seal the bargain, Remus wrapped both arms around her, brushed gentle lips so tenderly across her forehead, and folded her close to his chest.

_Merlin_...There was no denying, in his arms holding, how very much he loved her. She felt, in the innermost parts of her, that she the only thing in the world he wanted.

She ought never to have doubted.

She never would again. She would learn this embrace by heart tonight, so she could hold on to it in all the lonely nights to come.

It was something. It was enough.

It had to be --

_-- for now. _

Tonks had glimpsed the golden strands of his hair highlighted amongst the grey. He looked more relaxed now than he had when he arrived. Whether he admitted it or not, being with her had eased his cares. There was colour in his face now, driving away the shadows of his gaunt cheeks. No damage had been done that could not be undone. She could undo it.

She _would_ undo it.

_To be continued..._

* * *

_ **A/N: The problem with alerts has put me a little behind when it comes to thanking each and every one of you for your lovely reviews for this fic, but I hope you know that as always, I appreciate the time each and every one of you has taken to read and comment on this story. I hope you liked this update. As incentive to tell me what you thought of it, reviewers get to spend a quiet evening with Remus, listening to music of your choice. **_


	5. 1997: This Is the Night 1

_Placide Cappeau wrote the lyrics to "O Holy Night" in 1847, and John S. Dwight translated the original French to English._

* * *

**1997: This Is The Night, Part One**

"I thought all our days were s'posed to be merry and bright, and all our Christmases be white," Tonks muttered as she and Remus burst, with a jingling bell and squishing shoes, into Flourish and Blotts.

"That only applies to Americans, I believe" said Remus dryly -- a striking contrast with their soggy clothes which rained as torrentially onto the floor as downpour outside. Propping the door open with one foot, he awkwardly leant out over the stoop to put his blown-out umbrella to rights; Tonks watched trembling droplets of rainwater cling precariously to his fringe. "And Muggle Americans, at that. No snow for London wizard-kind."

"In all our thousands of years of wizarding history," Tonks said, peeling off soaked gloves and chafing warmth into frozen hands, "why've no brilliant witches or wizards figured out how to make it snow in Diagon Alley? Least when it snows you've got something to show for freezing your bum off."

Overcoat swirling as he spun around, the umbrella now hooked over his elbow, Remus cocked his head and regarded Tonks with dancing eyes as the door clanged shut behind him. "Isn't freezing your bum off something to show for freezing your bum off?"

"Good job you're such a smart-arse. You'll want it in case it ever happens to you."

"Funny..." Remus took a step toward her, so that the frayed edge of his coat brushed the hem of her cloak. "I was going to say the same thing to you, since you're so very..." He ducked his head, and a bead of water dripped from his hair onto her nose. Raising a gloved hand to her cheek, he wiped the moisture away with his thumb and murmured, "..._cheeky_."

It might have been easier to swap insults with a Jarvey than to respond to corny joke when it was accompanied by a man's shiver-inducing warm breath on her face. Especially the shiver-inducing warm breath of a man who, for weeks, had walked with a spring in his step and a smile that never seemed to vanish completely, not even when he was strategising the Order's next defence against the Death Eaters.

Tonks didn't have to be an Auror to know Remus was up to something, though her sleuth training did her no good when it came to figuring out _what _he was up to. Whenever he caught her snooping or trying to get information out of him, he just smiled pleasantly and said it was Christmas and he was in love, and he probably only seemed exceptionally cheerful because he'd been exceptionally gloomy last year. And he was a Marauder, after all, so him _not _acting mysterious at Christmas would be akin to Mundungus Fletcher not being up to something of questionable legality at any time, wouldn't it?

Eyes never leaving hers, crinkling at the corners, Remus straightened up, undid his coat, and drew his wand from the inner pocket. _"Arefacio."_ He flicked it smartly over her clothes, then repeated the charm over his own.

"That's right," Tonks said, regaining her ability to give back now he wasn't so distractingly close to her and she wasn't soaked to the bone. Reaching up to check that her red and green curls still retained their bounce, she went on, "You'd better do your handy little drying spells, seeing as it's _your _idea to go shopping on a day like this." She waved her hand at the window, out which there was no visibility, due to the rain coming down in sheets, except for blurs of light from the Diagon Alley streetlamps; it was dark as night out, though it was only mid-afternoon.

Hand in the small of her back, Remus gently nudged Tonks toward the cash desk. As they moved away from the window, the panes of which creaked and groaned with the blasts of rain-driving wind, she became aware of the muted bookshop conversations of the shoppers, and the soft strains of music from the wireless. At first she thought the string introduction was a chamber piece that set the appropriate tone for a Christmas shopping date -- then the high, warbling voice of Celestina Warbeck joined in and ruined that illusion. "O starry night, foretelling in your shining..." It was a song about the war being over and the Dark Lord being defeated by an army of love, which Tonks thought was a nice sentiment, but maybe jumping the gun a bit. Not that it wasn't nice to have support. Just maybe musical patriotism ought to be left to the Weird Sisters...

Thankfully Remus leant close, and his gently rasping tones were suddenly the only sound in the world. "Tomorrow's Christmas. Harry's books didn't come in till today. I hadn't a choice." He pressed his lips quickly to her neck, then his words took on a teasing lilt. "Besides, you _volunteered _to come with me."

_Because who wouldn't go out in a hurricane if a blue-eyed man wearing a chocolate brown jumper came up behind you and kissed your neck and asked 'please' in that lovely voice? _

"Because I thought maybe I'd pick up on some clue or other about that..." Tonks made quotation marks in the air. "..._Order work_...you're being so damn mysterious about." She added, "Also, it hadn't started raining then."

"It rained all morning, and the weather witch said--"

"Why didn't you and Sirius and James ever figure out how to transfigure rain into snow?"

"We thought about it," Remus said as they took their place at the back of the long queue of last-minute shoppers, and raised his hand in greeting to Mr. Blott, who blinked owlishly behind his spectacles, then nodded his head. There was so much courtesy in the gesture that Tonks thought it seemed more a bow than a bob. Mr. Blott, whether he knew Remus was a werewolf or not, had always been very polite to him, but this spoke of a new-found respect.

It was on the tip of Tonks' tongue to inquire, but Remus smiled

pleasantly down at her and continued, "But we decided against it because we realised that doing so would prevent me having this delightful banter with you that makes people think we're two Hogwarts students who haven't any idea how else to flirt."

Tonks raised an eyebrow. "Speak for yourself."

"I was only trying to be a gentleman by lumping us together, but since you insist, I think the gentlemanly thing to do would be to oblige you. _I_ know _precisely_ how else to flirt."

Leaning close so that Tonks felt his breath again, Remus took off his gloves, caught her hands, and chafed her skin with his warm, long fingers.

"Are you quite dry enough now, my lady?" he murmured. "It's very warm in here, and though it will only take a moment to have Harry's books wrapped, we can browse as long as you like in the hope that the storm will break."

Holding both her hands in one of his, he let the other wrap around her waist as he kissed her knuckles. Tonks just caught the gleam in his eyes as they darted over her head, before his hand dropped due south and two strong fingers pinched her bottom.

"Oh-ho!" The witches ahead of them in the queue turned as Tonks drew herself up into her most imposing stance. Which was a tad difficult to make imposing when Remus' eyes were darting down to your chest as you threw your shoulders back and put your hands on your hips. "That's right magnanimous of you, Mr. Lupin. How d'you know I haven't got a lot of shopping to do in here and had already planned to browse for hours?"

"Nice try, Nymphadora," Remus said, and continued before she could protest his use of her Christian name, "except I remember quite vividly that, not a quarter of an hour ago, we did a present check and you said..." He cleared his throat then, in falsetto, mimicked an annoying sing-song, "I finished mi-ine.'"

"_Please _stop channelling Sirius. And since when am I not allowed to think of one more person I ought to give a present to?"

"Of course you're allowed to give presents to anybody you please. Only I know for a fact there's not one single more person you know well enough to." Before Tonks could protest, Remus' grin became lopsided as he leant toward her and, voice dropping to a husky pitch, said, "If you can think of one, however, I shall gladly grovel at your feet."

Tonks' hands moved from her hips to tug at the tasselled end of his burgundy scarf. "Or anywhere I ask you to grovel?"

She felt her lips curve upward as she watched his Adam's apple bob and his eyes darken to look at her with more desire now than flirtation. His fingers skimmed over her hips as they slid around her waist and pulled her snugly against him. "Do, please, think of one more."

"Umbridge."

Remus' eyes snapped wide open, the hazy look of want clearing like Dementors scattering from a Patronus, as his mouth hung agape and his hands fell to his sides. A strangled sound emitted from his throat, and his lips mouthed _Umbridge?_

Laughing inwardly that she'd managed to wrong-foot Remus, she managed to keep a straight face as she caught his elbow and pulled him forward in the queue. "I've always said dear old Dolores needs a copy of _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_--"

"That she does, Miss!"

They turned to see a gaunt young man with shoulder length dirty-blond hair wearing black work robes coming out of the back room. He carried a stack of wrapped presents, which Mr. Blott appraised from under raised eyebrows as the younger man laid them on the cash desk. If the proprietor had found any fault in the wrapping, the assistant wouldn't know, because he was approaching Tonks.

"Good job you came in today, Miss," he said, "because the author, Remus J. Lupin--" His grey eyes were enormous in his face as he regarded Remus with what could only be startled recognition. "_Lupin_!"

"Jake," said Remus, equally surprised, slowing reaching out his hand to shake.

Tonks was shocked for a completely different reason. "He knows you wrote it?" she asked as Remus shook hands with Jake -- whoever _he_ was.

Remus glanced at her, but before he could comment, Jake corrected, "Jacob again, mate." His lips jerked into a smile as though he were unaccustomed to doing so, revealing a mouthful of jagged and broken teeth; the eye teeth were pointed, almost as if they'd been filed... "Or Shepherd, if you like." 

_Jacob Shepherd. _ There was something vaguely familiar about the name, as well as his face -- but then, as many people as Tonks saw in her line of work, everyone was. Though his features were lined, Tonks guessed him to be about her own age. How did Remus know him? Or rather: how did Remus know him well enough that Shepherd knew his secret about _Hairy Snout_? And if Shepherd _did _know Remus that well, surely he knew Remus wouldn't want all the Christmas shoppers in Flourish and Blotts to know? Tonks glanced around; except for Mr. Blott, whose eyes kept darting over his customers' heads, everyone else seemed intent on peering out the windows at the rain, or oohing and aahing over the Celestina Warbeck song. How many verses did it have, anyway? And Remus himself didn't seem particularly concerned -- though she did note that the calm expression on his face was the one he wore when he wasn't calm at all.

Who the bloody hell was Jacob Shepherd? 

Then she heard Remus' voice echoing faintly in her mind, pronouncing the name in choked tones, and she remembered: the man in the hospital bed across from Arthur two Christmases earlier. He'd been bitten by a werewolf. Tonks had bought _Hairy Snout_, and Remus had given it to him.

And then met him again last year, underground.

_He doesn't go by Shepherd anymore, obviously_, she heard Remus' slightly bitter voice from last Christmas. _The irony of living among feral werewolves..._ If Shepherd was going by Shepherd now, then surely he couldn't be living underground? For the first time, Tonks noticed Flourish and Blotts embroidered in gold on the breast pocket of his robes.

"Didn't expect to see you in here!" Shepherd was saying to Remus. "Mr. Blott said you wouldn't do a book signing and the like." 

"_Book signing_?" Tonks cried, and a few heads did turn. Though she was enough used to turned heads to know they were probably turning because the outburst came from a girl with outlandish hair than by the outburst itself. "Remus, what in Merlin's name--?"

But she knew _exactly_ what in Merlin's name.

Heart leaping, Tonks turned to look for the display, but Remus laid a firm hand on her shoulder and turned her to Shepherd. "Tonks," he said, glancing down at her with a polite smile, "I don't believe you've been properly introduced to Jacob Shepherd. Jacob, my girlfriend, Nymphadora Tonks."

"I remember you." Jacob smirked at Tonks as he gave her hand a weak pump.

Colouring, every fibre of Tonks' being silently implored Merlin not to let Jacob say what she'd said to him that day she'd been at St. Mungo's without Remus. The poor bloke had just been lying there, all green and ill looking and Tonks, more than a little put out with Molly's attitude about a werewolf sharing Arthur's ward, had marched over to Shepherd's bed and said, "I'm dating a werewolf, so don't worry." Shepherd had opened one eye a slit, coughed, and croaked, "Thanks. I'm really glad I haven't got to worry about pink haired losers coming on to me."

"The crazy hair," Shepherd said, gesturing to his own.

Letting out a deep breath of relief, Tonks scrunched up her face and changed her curls to pink spikes. "Think this was the crazy you remember."

Shepherd's smirk fell away as he gawped. "Blimey," he said then looked over her head at Remus. "Only girlfriend still? You mean she doesn't know yet?"

Only girlfriend still? What was going on here? Well -- she had a pretty good idea. But apparently there was more afoot than that.

Letting her hair go red and green again, Tonks looked up over her shoulder at Remus in time to see his hand, which had been tugging at his hair in a nervous gesture, drop to his side as he drew his features into that unruffled expression -- but he couldn't do anything about having gone very, very pale. Some part of his plan -- whatever that was -- was not going right. Tonks, though curious, and though excitement had stolen over her with the sensation of hundreds of fairies taking flight inside her, forced herself not to look around the bookshop and spoil his surprise any more than Shepherd already had.

"What don't I know, Remus?" she asked, affecting a wide-eyed, clueless look.

Remus' eyes narrowed ever so slightly in scrutiny; Tonks couldn't tell, despite the fact that the colour returned to his face as he smiled at her, if he really believed her innocent act.

Resting his hand once more in the small of her back, he said, "Why, that Jacob appears to be working here."

"Just started this morning!" For an instant, Shepherd's grin widened, then abruptly his mouth drew up into a sober line as he looked very intently at Remus. "Thanks to you."

Remus' hand slid over Tonks hip as he suddenly leant a good amount of his weight against her. "What do you mean?"

"Excuse me," huffed a portly wizard behind them in the queue. "Are you lot going to move forward, or am I going to have to explain to my wife that Flourish and Blotts closed before I could pay for her present?"

Remus apologized politely and let the wizard go ahead, while Tonks glanced at the wizard's purchase and bit her tongue to keep from saying his poor wife might prefer nothing to a cookbook. It was easier to control herself when the main thing on her mind was the fact that somehow Remus had helped Shepherd get a job.

"You were saying?" she prompted.

Shepherd cast a furtive glance over his shoulder at his employer, who was watching him carefully whilst asking if the wizard wanted the cookbook gift-wrapped. "Cost extra, don't it?" asked the customer.

Shepherd stepped away from the cash stand, away from the main aisle of the bookshop. Remus and Tonks leant close as he said in a low tone, "I was in Diagon Alley to, erm..."

His eyes darted to his feet, shuffling in shoes that were beyond scuffed and held together with tape. To scavenge and steal, Tonks supplied mentally. Heart suddenly heavy in her chest that this could have been Remus -- had been Remus, at particularly low points of his life, and even last year -- she nestled closer into the crook of his arm and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"It started raining," Shepherd continued, cheeks spotted with red as he looked up at them again. "So I ducked in here. Mr. Blott was setting up the display--"

The strong fingers on her waist nudged her. Tonks turned to look across the shop at the Magical Creatures section. Nothing, except a collection of Newt Scamander's books, was on the display shelf.

"Biographies," said Shepherd, helpfully.

Tonks' head whipped toward the next aisle over.

There, at the end, stood row upon row of a tan book with a moving picture on the cover. Tonks moved away from Remus for a closer look. At the top, of course, was the title; but whereas the original, anonymous version had been a simple leather binding with embossed lettering, the Hairy Snout part appeared to be done in some sort of furry material, while the shiny red curlicues -- like Valentine writing -- formed Human Heart.

Under the title was a picture of a canine snout, complete with fangs. Tonks guessed the artist hadn't paid attention in DADA about the shape of a werewolf's snout. It morphed into a human nose and lips as a decidedly female pair came into the frame and kissed them. The two sets of lips shifted again, into the shape of a heart as the title appeared below: A Lycanthrope's Look at Life & Love.

Blimey...Remus must have got some deal with his publisher, to get a cover like that. She leant back against his chest, feeling as if the flutter of a page might knock her over. It was better than anything Gilderoy Lockhart ever dreamed about having. No wonder Remus had been walking about with a spring in his step, looking like he was up to something.

She heard Shepherd talking. "...and I saw it was your name on the cover."

Indeed it was: by Remus J. Lupin.

It was a red-letter day -- quite literally.

He'd actually put his name to it!

She spun and clutched his lapels. "Remus! When did you do this?"

"Before today," Remus replied.

Tonks gave him a look, and his lips twitched as he tried not to laugh.

"_Anyway_," Shepherd went on irritably, "I don't mind saying, Lupin, I was right shocked to see your name, seeing as how you'd never let on before. And then when you were around last year, you said you thought it was a pretty unrealistic view of the world."

Tonks winced, part of her mind rejecting the notion of Remus ever saying such a thing. Yet she saw him, so clearly, in her mind's eye, grey and shabby on her sofa last Christmas, and ached at his words she'd not yet managed to forget: _I am a fool. They all think I'm a fool._

"...so of course I picked it up to read," Shepherd's voice pulled her out of her melancholy musing. "I thought the first one was compelling--"

Melancholy banished by an unstoppable snort of laughter -- which earned her a pointed look from Shepherd -- Tonks looked up at Remus and mouthed, _I told you so_. Remus rolled his eyes, but the sparkle in them lessened the effect, as did his fingers stroking the curve of her hip through her bulky winter clothes.

Shepherd continued babbling: "And of course I just wanted to know what changed your mind. Mr. Blott told me I had to buy it if I wanted to read, so _I_ told _him_ I had to have a job to buy it, and he...I don't know, understood, and asked if I knew how to wrap presents. So, here I am, and I've been reading your book in between customers..."

Behind them, a throat cleared.

"You are no longer _between _customers, Mr. Shepherd," said Mr. Blott, drumming his fingers on a stack of black leather bound books on the cash desk. "Mr. Lupin, I assume you would like your order gift wrapped?"

"Yes, please," said Remus, smiling at Shepherd, who'd been thrown into a flushing frenzy at his new employer's reprove.

"Right," he said. "I'll have them ready in a jiffy." He grabbed the heavy volumes from the cash stand, started toward the wrapping room, but turned back on his heel to whisper to say to Remus under his breath, "He's paying me cash in hand Thanks again, mate. And even if I hadn't got the job, the book's fantastic. Life-changing. Pity most of us can't read..."

"_Mr. Shepherd_," Mr. Blott said through his teeth, and Shepherd bolted to carry out his duty. The proprietor nodded to Remus. "It _is _well written. An illuminating perspective."

Remus thanked him very quietly, in typical humble Remus fashion, and looked a little askance as he shoved his hands into his pockets and faced Tonks. It wasn't lost on her what a gigantic thing an autobiography was for Remus; it wasn't as if, after the Hogwarts scandal, he was a faceless werewolf. And not only was it a memoir of his experiences as a werewolf, he'd also included _love _in the content. _She_ was hardly low-profile. It was a bold move --

-- and he'd made it for her.

Looking at him, wearing that rich brown jumper and burgundy scarf, fringe falling in his eyes and that wary schoolboy look on his face, thinking that he'd been touched enough by her to go against his private nature, Tonks wanted nothing more than to take his face in her hands and snog him senseless. But somehow, given how exposed he must feel right now, Tonks decided a public display of affection was most probably the last thing he needed.

"Real answer this time," she said, tracing his lapels with her fingertips. "When did you do all this good and illuminating writing, and when were you planning to break the news to me that you'd done it, and got a cover that will land you at the top of the Witch Weekly bestseller list?"

Remus glanced at the shelf full of copies of his own book, coloured slightly, and said, "I'm sure it won't be a best--"

"I'm only glad they didn't put your picture on the front, or else I'd be beating off swarms of former Lockhart fans, and between all the Dementors and Death Eaters, I haven't the time." Tonks jabbed him playfully in the chest with her index finger. "Tell me, Mr. Order Leader, when did _you _find the time?"

"Please don't poke me." Remus caught her hands. Very softly, he said, "It's been my little hobby, when you're not home. And I didn't tell you because..."

He faltered, and his gaze fluttered down to his hands holding hers against his chest. Giving them a squeeze, he met her eyes again.

"Doing this for you seemed like the one thing I could give you for Christmas that would be all from me. Of course..." He glanced over her shoulder and frowned, and Tonks looked back to see into the back room, where Shepherd was wrapping those books. "It wasn't supposed to unfold _quite_ like this."

"How was it supposed to unfold, then?" Tonks asked. "I assume you brought me here so I'd see the display?"

"Yes -- and I was turning the conversation rather smoothly toward browsing, if you'll allow me to channel Sirius for just a moment, until you decided to get shirty with me."

"Ooh..." Tonks let go of his hands and batted her eyelashes. "So you mean I was supposed to play the lady to your gentleman, wander over here..." She moved toward the _Hairy Snout _display, and Remus followed.

"Yes, and when I observed from the cash desk that you were suitably gobsmacked, I would sneak up behind you, like so..."

The umbrella hooked over Remus' elbow pressed into her side as his arms snaked around her waist and pulled her snugly against him.

"...kiss your cheek..."

Apparently he didn't feel too exposed by the book for public affection; warm, soft lips skimmed her cheekbone.

His voice no more than a hoarse whisper, he added, "...and say, _Merry Christmas, Nymphadora."_

His breath on her neck made the tiny hairs stand as a chill prickled down her skin. "Don't call me Nymphadora," Tonks said, covering his hands clasped around her waist with her own.

Remus chuckled low and squeezed her middle. "Precisely according to plan."

They remained like that for a moment, his chin resting on her shoulder, as Tonks gazed at the new editions of _Hairy Snout, Human Heart. _Gobsmacked was exactly how she felt as she tried to process just what this meant in light of the state Remus had been in last year. She let go of Remus' hands to reach out and touch the fuzzy lettering of the word _hairy._

"All wrapped," Shepherd's voice called. Tonks turned as Remus raised his head from her shoulder, to see him striding out from the back room with Harry's books, now done up in green paper. She looked back at Remus' book, which she was still touching. Merlin, it had changed a man's life. A man who'd given up on society had found hope from someone who still held out hope. Mr. Blott had been touched by the human heart, and risked penalty of law to give Shepherd a job. _What had Remus written? _

She grabbed the book and started to pull it from the shelf, when Remus, who'd just released her waist to make his purchase, pulled it from her grasp.

"Reading in the shop is _not_ part of the plan." Smiling pleasantly, he replaced the book on the shelf.

"But you've written about _me_!" Tonks cried in a tone Remus would probably call shirty. "I want to read it. Why did you bring me here if you're not going to let me read it?"

"--_yet_," Remus said. "And I brought you here because it all began here."

He smiled cryptically, then turned toward the cash stand, reaching into his cloak for his money bag.

Tonks tried to glower after him, but didn't really have the heart because he was chuckling and winking at her over his shoulder; his fringe, falling over his forehead, looking golden. She knew it was just a trick of the warm shop light, that his hair hadn't un-greyed. But his features seemed to defy the signs of age and stress. Jokey and confident, Remus seemed so much younger than he had last Christmas.

And...he'd written the revised edition of his autobiography.

With his name on it.

With bits about being in love.

_He'd written about her._

Checking to make sure Remus' back was to her and that he was rapt on his conversation with Mr. Blott, Tonks grabbed a book and flipped to the table of contents. She stopped before she got there, distracted by the dedication.

"To my parents, Marius and Sylvia Lupin, who looked past a hairy snout and saw a human heart; and to Nymphadora Tonks, who holds it in her hands and will never let go."

Her heart turned over. He'd told her, two years ago, that if he were to re-write the book, he would dedicate it to her...But he'd said it half-jokingly, and she'd been swept up in him telling her he loved her...Then last year the idea of being together, much less of Remus' self-perception changing enough for him to revise Hairy Snout, had seemed pipe dreams...She'd hardly dared to dream -- yet now she held a dream come true in her hands...printed on crisp paper and bound between covers that would stand the test of time--

"Nymphadora..."

Her heart lurched at Remus' hoarsely calling voice. She snapped the book shut, pretended she'd only just picked it up.

"I'm all sorted," he said, turning toward her, shopping bag in hand. "Would you like to browse a while longer?"

Tonks grabbed another copy. And another. "Seems I've got more pressies to give." She took a couple more before carrying them toward the cash desk. "So start grovelling."

Instead of his face registering his response to her suggestive comment, Remus quirked an eyebrow. "I was under the impression that the sort of grovelling you want me to do isn't the sort I ought to demonstrate in public. And you know, it would be nice if some of the royalties come from people other than ourselves."

"Have you got a copy for me?" Tonks asked over her shoulder.

"They're all for you."

His tone was velvet, and Tonks' heart buckled again, along with the rest of her insides, to hear Remus say what was implied by the dedication in the book: He'd done this for her. She was as important to him as his mother and father...And Merlin, the way his eyes were caressing her--

"Of course, you ought to know that," he said, expression changing abruptly to a smirk as he sauntered up beside her, peeking down at her through his fringe, "since you peeked at the dedication."

"You great--Ow!"

Her hip collided with the counter, and she cried out again as her hands flew to clutch it, dropping the books on her toes. They were her heavy work boots, so it didn't really hurt, but it was the principal of the thing, especially with Mr. Blott looking at the books and at her as if she'd just dropped a baby, and Remus, gathering them and offering words of concern, but which were rendered null by his laughing eyes.

"Will you be purchasing those?" Mr. Blott asked Tonks as Remus handed them to her.

"I don't know," said Remus to Tonks before she could reply. "It does seem rather a bad omen, doesn't it, that you injured yourself over these books after I suggested you not buy them?"

"Who are you channelling now?" Tonks snapped. "Professor Trelawney?" She plonked her books on the counter. "No gift wrap, thanks," she said to Mr. Blott, who still looked huffy at how she was handling the books, despite her intent to buy. She glanced over her shoulder at Remus. "You're going to autograph them when we get home."

Shepherd, who'd been sweeping up around the cash desk, dropped his broom and bolted toward the back room.

"Does that mean I've got to wrap them, too?" Remus asked.

"If you want them to look nice," Tonks replied. 

Mr. Blott was just handing Tonks her change when Shepherd clattered back into the main bookshop, nearly knocking over a beanpole of a wizard who'd just stepped up behind Remus.

"Lupin!" panted Shepherd, thrusting a copy of Hairy Snout at Remus. "Could you autograph it for me?" 

"I..." Remus' eyes darted from Shepherd to the wizard he'd nearly run down -- who was mumbling about having quite fancied the cover, and thought he'd get a copy after all, since the author was right here shopping at Flourish and Blotts -- to Mr. Blott, who looked mortified at Shepherd's ostentatious request, before finally settling on Tonks. She smiled -- because he was so adorable in his lack of knowing how to handle a request of this kind, he seemed to believe _she _knew, and because she was so damn proud he'd got himself in the position of having to hear how much people admire his work. She threaded her arm through his and squeezed it.

"It's just..." Just before Jacob ducked his head and his unkempt hair fell into his face, Tonks glimpsed a tinge of pink on his sallow cheeks. He looked every bit the awkward adolescent as he hunched his shoulders, shuffled his feet, swallowed so hard that his Adam's apple looked like he'd ingested a whole Satsuma. "I can't thank you enough. I'm sorry for..." His voice cracked. "...for the things I said to you in the colony." 

Tonks fleetingly wondered what Shepherd had said, but banished the thought, as she did all similar ones. Curious as she was, inadequate as she felt sometimes by not knowing what Remus had endured, he was right in not telling her everything. They would never move past that year if they dwelt on it.

Anyway, she was far more interested in the way the deeply etched discomfort on Remus face was smoothed away by compassion as he laid a hand on Shepherd's shoulder. "I too said a great many things of which I am not proud. Let's put it behind us, shall we?"

Shepherd beamed as Remus took the book from him and borrowed a quill from Mr. Blott. Tonks, her heart swelling like a balloon that would surely pop if it continued, couldn't resist glancing over Remus' shoulder to see his inscription: _"To Jacob Shepherd, and a better life among wizards. Regards, Remus J. Lupin." _

Shepherd looked right chuffed as he read the message, and asked, "Can I buy you a drink sometime?"

After arranging a meeting time, and autographing the copy of _Hairy Snout _the skinny stranger thrust in Remus' face -- as well as Mr. Blott's copy -- Tonks led Remus, flushed and decidedly dazed by the burst of attention, to the door and asked if _she_ could by him a drink.

The burst of cold air that greeted them on the porch seemed to give Remus his composure. "No, I've got to buy you a hot chocolate at the Leaky," he said, putting up his umbrella and wrapping an arm around her waist to pull her close so that the material sheltered them both. "And I think I can just afford it, what with the royalties I just made from the books you purchased.

In light of his earlier comment that it had all begun at Flourish and Blotts, Tonks didn't miss the significance of the fact that he now had got to take her for hot chocolate at the Leaky, she wondered again just what he'd planned in regard to this book business.

She poked him in the side. "Right, as if you need royalties when that fantastic illustrated cover means you must have got a big fat advance. What did they pay you, anyway?"

"How do you know I haven't spent it already?" Remus' grin turned into a frown as he peered out at the sheets of rain that had driven all but a few brave souls off the crooked streets, and ruined the garland and red ribbon that had decked Diagon Alley. "Is there any chance, do you think, of this letting up before the night's out?"

"Only if you figure out how to transfigure it into snow." Wondering why it mattered, and trying to work out whether she'd only imagined a hint of seriousness in his tone when he'd said about spending his advance, Tonks glanced back at the shop window. She saw Shepherd, still grinning down at his book -- presumably at Remus' autograph.

As Remus started down the porch steps, she looked up at him. "How's it feel to have changed a man's life?"

"I didn't--"

"You did, and you know it."

They passed under a streetlamp, and it provided just enough light to reveal the two spots of colour on Remus' cheeks. He stopped walking, and turned to her, and Tonks felt cocooned under the umbrella with him; their bodies pressed closely together, and the rain fell down around them, but they themselves remained quite dry. And Remus' smile, a mixture of disbelief and acknowledgment of the truth that yes, his book had affected another person, warmed her as well. He looked deeply pleased. Delighted, in fact; Tonks could feel it radiating out of his gloved hand as he trailed it upward from her waist to cup her cheek...and then in his warm lips as he suddenly dipped his head and pressed them firmly against hers. The eagerness of his mouth opening and closing over hers stole Tonks' breath, but that didn't seem to matter as she twined her arms around his neck, crushing her paper shopping bag between them, and responded in kind.

It was probably due to that Celestina Warbeck song in her subconscious, but Remus' kiss reminded Tonks of seeing wizards and witches kissing in the streets when the news broke that the first war had ended. And of course that must be how Remus felt about what had transpired with Shepherd: he'd thought the battle he'd waged underground had been a dismal failure -- yet now, so many months after the fact, he'd won. Tonks wasn't sure whether her heart raced more from Remus' triumph, or from the gratitude he was expressing to her.

As he kissed her again and again, she saw stars and knew how he must have felt in the bookshop, at hearing Shepherd's simple words, thank you. His arm wrapped around her waist again, holding her firmly against him, and Tonks was sure, holding her up altogether. She loved the sense that in Remus' gratitude, there was nothing of the beholden as there had been in those raw, needy kisses he'd given when they first reconciled. He kissed her as equal, as partner, as helpmate, and also as victor in his own personal war, waged in blood, sweat, and tears.

But when he at last drew back from her, Tonks remembered the sombreness that had followed the wild kissing in the streets, reflected in a flicker of melancholy in the depths of Remus' joyful eyes. The sweetness of victory was such because of the bitterness of the toil that had preceded it.

"I wish Dumbledore knew," he said hoarsely.

Tonks felt the firm ground beneath her feet once more as Remus leant against her. Tightening one arm around his waist, she traced his hair back from his forehead.

"He did," she said. "He always knew you'd make a difference."

Remus smiled softly and, murmuring that he loved her, bent to kiss her again -- but just as their lips touched, the wind suddenly dove under their umbrella, shot upward again, and blew it out. The heavy downpour immediately soaked them to the bone.

Without another word they bolted, hand-in-hand, for the Leaky Cauldron, for that now much-needed cup of hot chocolate.

To be continued...

* * *

_**A/N: My thanks to all of you who have reviewed, and my apologies to all of you I haven't thanked properly. This PM outage has got me way behind, and I can't possibly catch up on replies, so I'd like to thank all of you by name who have reviewed: A. Nonny Mouse, Bardlover, BlueSea14, Ishandtwofourths, Lady Anck-su-namun, NaginiFay, Peachpaige, remus R us, Soft N' Fluffy, Taela, and Waterdreamer. I appreciate your feedback so much and am thrilled you're enjoying this holiday story! **_

_**To make up for how remiss I've been, I offer a deluxe review bribe: those who comment get their own rumpled, scarf-wearing, flirty author!Remus who plots an elaborate scheme to tell you he's secretly written a book just for you. **_


	6. 1997: This Is the Night 2

**1997: This Is The Night, Part Two**

"I thought you bought those books as presents for other people."

Tonks looked up with a start from the revised edition of Hairy Snout, Human Heart as Remus set two steaming mugs on the table and took a seat across from her in the booth.

"Yes, well." Laying the book on the table, Tonks wrapped both hands around a cocoa and hugged it against her dry, but still chilled, self. "You cast really good drying spells and all, but I wanted to be sure the rain hadn't ruined the books. You wouldn't have me give out water-logged ones, would you?"

Remus shook his head as he settled himself. "And I suppose you think I'm frightfully silly to suggest you can check a book's condition without reading it?"

"No. I think you're frightfully silly to have stood over there at the bar and wagged your finger at me. As if that would deter me from anything. In fact, you only stirred my rebellious streak."

For a moment, Remus gazed at the book with pursed lips. His expression was serious as he took a long drink of hot chocolate and Tonks, distracted by the sudden thought that she'd somehow messed up his plan again by diving into the book before he said, gulped down too much and burnt her tongue.

The thought didn't have time to niggle before Remus asked, tone a little too level, "Am I correct to assume you're not a speed reader, and that you've skipped the account of my early life?"

"Course I did," Tonks replied. "You know I wanted to read what you wrote about me." Stomach giving a little twist of guilt, Tonks added, "I didn't get very far -- just through your introduction about dating. It's hard to concentrate in here, with all the talking and the music..."

Her words trailed away as her ears pricked with the sounds of the Myron Wagtail crooning, "I Saw The Stars on Christmas Night" to the backup of cello and lute. She supposed it had been a little harsh of her to judge Celestina Warbeck for singing about the war being over when the Weird Sisters had started the trend last year.

"Go on, then." Remus sat back in his chair as the stiffness left his smile.

Tonks sloshed her cocoa as she set down her mug and stared at him for a moment. "You mean, go on reading?"

"Aren't you going to perish from curiosity if you don't?"

"Yes, but...you seemed to want me to wait...Have you got something planned for Christmas--?"

"Of course I do." Remus took another drink, and smirked. "And if I wanted you to wait, believe me, I wouldn't have told you to go on. I'd have vanished the whole lot of books."

Biting her lip against the goofy grin that wanted to bloom on her face, Tonks thought, for the millionth time, that it just wasn't fair that Remus was so damn smooth when he was being a condescending prat. She'd mastered bluffing in Investigation and Interrogation training, but somehow all of that control was shattered by those twinkling blue eyes and the curved mouth she desperately wanted to lean across the table and kiss. She couldn't let on that his brand of smugness was the spell for butterflies taking flight inside inside of her; he'd be as bad as Sirius.

"Now you're channelling Perfect Prefect Lupin." Tonks said, ordering an eyebrow to arch -- but his grin became lopsided and boyish and disarming again, and the arched brow became a lost cause as she laughed and traced the fuzzy lettering on the cover with her fingertips. "I'll feel silly sitting here reading while you sit there drinking your cocoa."

"You could read aloud."

Tonks didn't waste another second picking up the book and flipping through to where she'd left off. Once she'd found it, however, she hesitated. There was something truly strange about reading a book your boyfriend had written about himself -- and about you -- aloud to him. She was surprised Remus had suggested it. Wouldn't it make him self-conscious?

On sudden impulse, she pushed the book toward him. "Why don't you read to me?"

"Me? Read my own book?"

"S'what authors do, isn't it?" She didn't add that she found the prospect of his quiet, hoarse voice speaking the words that sounded so like him --that were from him-- but were much more than he ever would ever normally say, more than a little bit of a turn on.

"I suppose it is," said Remus, taking the book from her. "From the top of this page?"

Tonks nodded eagerly, and hugged her cocoa again, pulse quickening with anticipation as Remus took another sip of his, cleared his throat, then began to read:

_"If I have managed to convey even half of the angst I endured as a teenager about whether it was right to keep my dark secret from my mates, and how paralyzing the fear could be that if the admission would not drive them away, my tiresomeness would, then you can imagine the extreme melodrama that accompanied my adolescent yearning for a love life._

_"Most of it had far more to do with the simple fact that I am rubbish with girls, and nothing whatsoever to do with my furry little problem. Perhaps it might have, if I had ever managed not to botch things long before a girl noticed the frequency and pattern of my stays in the hospital wing. Some nights I lie awake wondering if gawky, randy teenaged boys really are more off-putting than werewolves. And considering I always knew I wouldn't sprout a bushy tail in the middle of a date, I was far more concerned about breaking out in spots or a cracking voice--"_

Tonks snorted into her cocoa, and Remus looked up from the book with a sheepish half-grin.

"Am I going to regret going against my taciturn nature?" he asked. "Must I relive the mortification of being sixteen?"

"I'm laughing because you toss and turn some nights, and I can picture you fretting over that," said Tonks, giggles underscoring her words.

Remus quirked a brow. "Not exactly reassuring."

"It's an adorable picture."

Chuckling self-consciously, Remus pushed his hair out of his eyes, then lifted the book again. "In that case, I shall let that be my segue." He resumed reading:

_"Lest I paint an unattractive and inaccurate picture of my adult self, and receive fan owls from homely, desperate single witches over a certain age who would like to put my sleepless musings to rest, I will say that I did, for the most part, outgrow my awkwardness. Or, perhaps..." _

Remus' eyes flicked up to her, then darted back down as he grinned wryly and read on, laughter in his voice, _"Or perhaps_ _ I simply learnt to package it better; my girlfriend seems to find a sheepish grin, hands shoved deep into the trouser pockets, and a ducked head that makes the fringe fall in the eyes 'oh-so-adorably sixteen.'"_

Face warm, Tonks let out a little shriek of laughter -- not so much because it was funny, as that _Remus Lupin_ had actually included such a personal detail in a _published book. _

"Why did you ever argue being too old for me?" Tonks asked, and his chuckle seemed to dance with hers in the air to the Christmas music.

It was the Celestina song again, and oddly, when Remus resumed reading, Tonks found herself paying more attention to the lyrics than to Remus' cleverness about the dilemma of coming out to your girlfriend as a werewolf. Maybe it was because the Weird Sisters' song preceding it had put her in a more charitable frame of mind -- goodwill toward men and all that...But the verse in "O Starry Night" about chains being broken and oppression ceasing really was lovely.

Eventually, Remus' rasping tones won the war for audience against the wobbly soprano.

_"If I ever do find out the solution for The Coming Out As A Werewolf Dilemma, I shall put it in another book, with a catchy title, perhaps along the lines of, Howl: How To Tell Your Significant Other You've Got a Furry Not-So-Little Problem, And Other Helpful Hints_. _But as my current girlfriend knew before we met what I am, and as I intend not to date any other witch, ever, you shall have to hope that another lycanthrope takes up a career as an author. _

_"Though perhaps I **do** have a handy hint, after all. If you anticipate meeting..._"

He paused, smiled more to himself than at her; Tonks' really did think she might melt as he continued, in a tone she'd only ever heard him address her:

"_If you anticipate meeting_ _The Woman of Your Dreams and fear making that dreaded announcement: get yourself involved in a scandal -- small enough that you don't land yourself in Azkaban, but large enough that every witch in Britain -- at least the ones involved with Magical Law Enforcement or Control of Magical Creatures -- takes note of your name and associates it with lycanthropy. You never know; one might meet you, find you charming, and want to go out with you anyway." _

"Or want to go to bed with you," Tonks blurted.

Remus looked up at her with rounded eyes and a lopsided smile.

"You're very funny and sexy in print, you know," Tonks said.

"Am I now?" Remus asked, chuckling quietly, and glancing out the window. "It's stopped raining."

"And since you asked earlier if I thought it would, I assume you've got something planned for outside?"

Eyes gleaming over his mug as he drained his hot chocolate, Remus got to his feet. "If I were really like the me you read in print, I'd say I'd been planning to make love to you in the street, but as I'm not nearly as interesting in real life, you'll have to settle for a leisurely walk home."

"S'okay," Tonks said as he offered her a hand up, then helped her into her cloak. "Love-making on the street couldn't probably isn't nearly as exciting as it sounds."

"No," said Remus. "I suppose cobbles would make things a bit...bumpy."

Laughing, Tonks pulled on her gloves, then slipped her hand into his as they wove their way through the maze of tables toward the exit to Diagon Alley. "I think a Christmastime walk's quite sexy enough for me, so long as there's love-making at the end--Oh!"

Tonks stopped short as they stepped through the opening, realisation striking her like a brick wall. _It all began in Flourish and Blotts...they had to have a cocoa at the Leaky...now a walk home..._Remus was re-creating the night she'd discovered _Hairy Snout, Human Heart_, and they'd first said, I love you.

_Only girlfriend still? _Shepherd's words returned, striking her with a force that knocked the wind from her lungs.

_Dear Merlin... Could Remus be planning to--?_

"Leave something behind?" Remus asked, eyeing her with an arched eyebrow.

"No." Tonks shook her head. "Just surprised by the cold."

Remus released her hand and wrapped his arm about her waist as they ambled in the direction of home. Despite the lull in the storm, almost no one had ventured out of their homes or the Leaky; shop lights were dimmed, "Closed For Christmas, Will Re-open 27 December" signs hung in many windows as the keepers closed up early.

"Quiet tonight," Remus commented, just as Tonks noted that the only sound was the scrape of their shoes on the wet cobbles. "Will you sing?"

Recalling how she'd done that other Christmas when they'd walked together like this, Tonks obliged. "_O_ _starry night, foretelling in your shining--_

"There aren't any stars out tonight," Remus interrupted.

"There are," Tonks argued. "They're just hidden by the clouds. And if you want me to sing, it's got to be this one, because the bloody song's stuck in my head."

"Go ahead," Remus said. "You'll make it sound better than Celestina, at any rate."

_"O starry night, foretelling in your shining,_

_It is the night of our sweet freedom's birth!_

_Long lay the world in war and terror pining,_

_Till love endured and brought peace to the earth._

_A thrill of hope, the weary soldiers cheering,_

_For love has conquered death and its dark lord!_

_Lift up your eyes, O see the stars appearing!_

_O night divined, when we laid down our swords!_

_O night, O starry night, O night divined!_

_"Brave soldiers fought, for they loved one another;_

_They battled hate and secured us our peace._

_Chains have they broken; all wizards are brothers._

_By Merlin's name, all oppression shall cease!_

_Sweet songs of joy in grateful chorus raise we,_

_Let all among us lift a voice today!"_

"All among us, Remus," Tonks interrupted herself, choked by the swell of joy that rose as she experienced again what she'd felt earlier, when Remus kissed her, that she had fought and won a very important personal battle, and that somehow tonight, Christmas Eve, was the culmination of every hope and fear she'd had for him, for _them_ in the past two years. "That means you, too."

"May I read a bit more to you, instead?" Remus asked, bringing them to a halt in front of a park bench. The same one they'd sat on two years ago...

Tonks sat, and watched as Remus unbuttoned his overcoat and took out a present wrapped flawlessly in silver paper spangled with gold stars, tied up with a gold bow.

He held it out to Tonks, and as she accepted it with trembling hands, she knew at once that her own copy of _Hairy Snout, Human Heart: A Lycanthrope's Look at Life & Love _was inside.

"Why didn't you give it to me in Flourish and Blotts?" she asked as her gloved fingers fumbled to undo the bow. "Or the Leaky?"

Nerves made her babble; she knew the answer. Knew what lay beneath the paper she was opening with so much more care than she'd ever opened a present before, knew what would come after...Remus didn't seem to notice, but merely watched her with a smile as he sat beside her, sliding an arm around her shoulders.

Did he know that she knew? Did his thoughts resemble anything like hers right now?

As she freed the book from the wrapping paper, Remus' hands -- he'd taken off his gloves, and she felt the warmth of his skin even through her gloves -- covered hers as he gently pulled it from her.

"I know I teased you about reading it out of order," he said, "but I hope you won't mind if I skip ahead to a particular passage?"

She nodded, feeling strangely aware of how her heart was beating in her chest as she watched Remus' fingers flip through the book to the passage, the particular passage...

Oh, Merlin, she'd never imagined it like this.

How would he say it? Was this really happening? Was she reading too much into this?

_"I've heard it said," _he began, breath forming clouds in the air as he spoke,_ "that it is not good for man to be alone. I would venture to say that it is not good for werewolves, either."_

Tonks' eyes fluttered closed. This really was happening. He really was going to...

_"Those years following the deaths of my parents, my friends, when I was in and out of work as frequently as my girlfriend chooses and discards hair colours, fostered deep insecurities about my prospects for ever having the normal life my parents had always dreamed for me. When I met Nymphadora (she's so beautiful when she pretends to be cross with me for calling her that), her creativity, her flexibility--"_

"Lovely bit of innuendo there, Remus," Tonks heard herself say over him.

"--_and quite frankly, her **saintliness**_..." Remus' fingers squeezed her shoulder, but otherwise he remained intent on the book in front of him as he said casually, "I'll make a note to my editor to change that to _impishness _in the next edition."

His eyes, twinkling with mischief, darted sidelong at her and Tonks, laughing, snuggled into the crook of his arm. She wrapped her arm around him, slipping her hand inside his overcoat. This was lovely -- marked with Remus' special touch of sweetness and humour, all arranged just for her. She thought of that wizard in Flourish and Blotts, buying his wife a cookbook for Christmas; that would _never _be Remus -- not just because she didn't cook, but because he was _Remus_.

The rumble of his voice as he read pulled her out of her thoughts and reminded her to savour this moment, which only came once in a lifetime, and all too soon would end.

"..._creativity, her flexibility and, quite frankly, her saintliness," _he repeated, "_made_ _me dare to hope -- until duty compelled me to go and live among the worst off of my kind. _

_"Foolishly, I did not have the faith that love could withstand separation, or circumstances which dredged up every last one of those old insecurities. To speak in detail about that time would be to dwell too much on a past I'd like to leave behind, but suffice it to say that, cut off from human society, I became far more fixated on the one night I have a hairy snout than on the twenty-seven I do not."_

Tears pricked her eyes as Tonks remembered last Christmas, and how Remus had held the old anonymous copy of _Hairy Snout _and said it was the work of a foolish boy with a heedful of impossible dreams. Thank Merlin he didn't feel that way still. Thank Merlin he'd written his story again, written these beautiful words about dignity, about claiming his rightful, human place in society.

_"My life is marked by changes. Naturally, I fear and hate change that is beyond my control. All my life, I have sought to take part in things through which I might bring change to the world, and thus feel a semblance of control. I hope that this book might help change the way the world perceives me and those like me -- not just because we ought to have the rights other people do, but because I know how easily a lycanthrope's self-perception can be coloured by the perception of the wider Wizarding community. However, I hope cautiously. While I've got a bit of gold in my vault now, from my publisher's advance, and perhaps will receive enough in royalties to take my girlfriend out for a few hot chocolates, I know that I may yet remain unemployable, feared..._

_"Nonetheless, I will **try** -- because my efforts to change the world are sure, at least, to change me._

_"I never dreamt there was anything to do with my lycanthropy that I could control. For over thirty years, I've thought that my condition shaped me -- but it was the changes life wreaked, which could befall anybody, that moulded my heart. My human heart. And what becomes of my heart -- whether it remains locked up inside, untouched, uncultivated, to wither and die; or given over to the full moon's power; or given to another person, in love -- is my choice."_

Tonks sat up as joy welled, ballooning in her heart, pushing a beaming smile across her face. Remus removed his arm from around her, and turned slightly toward her, so that their knees touched, as he lowered the book to his lap.

His eyes moved up from the page and locked with hers.

She caught her breath.

Clouds formed in the air as Remus spoke. "I gave my heart to Nymphadora Tonks."

His hands pushed the book toward her, and she looked down to see that he'd spoken the words that were printed on the page. Written for her. Learned by heart because they were his heart.

Tonks lifted her eyes to his again. Her heart had stopped. She thought she'd stopped breathing, too, but from all appearances, her breath seemed to be mingling in the air with his.

"I tried to take it back," Remus went on, "but she refused to return it. It's because of her, for her, that I've written this book, and penned my name to it -- healed, whole, unashamed, determined to be the man she deserves, because apparently a stupid, stubborn man is far more off-putting than a werewolf. And that is why..."

Remus moved again -- oh dear Merlin...He'd got up from the bench -- but not up from the bench...

He was kneeling.

He was taking her left hand in both of his.

"And that is why I've just dropped down on bended knee...To ask her to do me the honour -- the very great honour -- of being...my wife."

Tonks gasped.

Not just because he'd actually asked her to marry him -- and even though she'd known it was coming, it still managed to take her completely by surprise -- but because, as Remus pronounced the words _my wife_, an illustration of a red jewellery box appeared on the page, beneath the very sentence he had quoted. Her eyes darted to his hands -- which she expected to be reaching into his pocket for a ring box. But Remus, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth, nodded back toward the open book in her lap.

The image materialised into a real velvet case, and opened to reveal green silk, upon which rested a gleaming diamond ring.

"Oh, Remus!" Tonks pulled her hand out of his and picked up the box. "Remus, it's beautiful..."

It wasn't a rock, like Bill Weasley had given Fleur, but it certainly was the sort of ring to catch an eye when she moved her hand and the angles of the cut gem caught the light.

She laughed. "You weren't joking about spending your advance, were you?"

He grinned -- boyishly, with the fringe falling over his eyes. "I didn't spend it all. I wanted to, but I thought a ring that size might be impractical when you're chasing dark wizards...Not to mention I was afraid of what you'd do to me if I didn't let you tell me how to spend some of it."

Tonks thrust the ring box at him, and held out her left hand. "Put it on me? Oh--my glove."

Remus caught her hand again, chuckling. "Just a moment. There's one very crucial bit you'll want to consider before you say yes." His eyes twinkled. "Which you haven't actually said yet."

She giggled, and felt her cheeks warm. He was right -- she _hadn't_ said yes. Leave it to her, to botch how to respond to such a meticulously planned, _wonderful _proposal...But Remus was peeling away her glove, anticipating she wouldn't be too put off by whatever it was he wanted her to read--

"...and to be the mother of those someday Ferocious Fourteens who I solemnly swear not to remind her are more bothersome than werewolves."

Her laughter pealed through the night, yet there was a tightness in her chest as it dawned on her that she was the fulfilment of the "future wife" Remus had dreamed of so long ago, in the summer of 1975 when he'd written this book. His parents had given him the dream, and though the hardships he'd faced, particularly this year, had stolen it, she had made him dream again.

And now it would no longer be a mere dream.

"Yes," she said.

Joy broke across Remus' face, eyes so bright that Tonks thought for a moment that the clouds had rolled away to reveal a sky blazing with stars. Of course it had not. In fact, a large, icy drop of rain pelted their twined hands. It glistened in the lamplight -- as did the diamond engagement ring, still nestled in its red velvet case.

"Will you put it on me now?" Tonks asked. "I've said yes."

For the first time since he'd knelt down, Remus broke eye contact as he slid the glittering gem onto her fourth finger. Tonks watched him, loving how the look of pure pleasure on his face eased away the years from his features. As soon as the ring was in place, before Tonks had a chance to admire it, Remus had, in a swift motion, stood and pulled Tonks -- who barely caught the book before it slipped off her lap into a puddle -- into his arms, and kissed her breathless.

"Merry Christmas, Nymphadora," he said. "No present in the world could be better than--"

The clouds burst, and for the third time that night, they were wet through. As they splashed down the street toward home, Tonks sang in a volume Celestina Warbeck could only dream of achieving:

_"Love is our lord! It shall endure forever!_

_Its pow'r and magic evermore proclaim!_

_Its pow'r and magic evermore proclaim!"_

_The End_

* * *

_**A/N: That's the end of this holiday fic. I hope you all enjoyed a little post Christmas cheer. I've really appreciated your efforts to review even though the site has been wonky. This time, reviewers get a mad dash through the rain with Remus, who will warm you up in the manner of your choice: Gentleman Remus will build up a big fire and make you hot chocolate; Marauder Remus will make up a story about not being very good at drying charms and offer you one of his shirts to wear while your clothes dry by air; or Sexy Remus will insist on warming you up himself...**_


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